


The Subconscious Knows More Than You Think

by Ssleepilyy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dave is really fucking old, Don't read this if you're super religious bc you'll probably get offended, He's really angry, I swear my writing is better than my tagging, Jade still doesn't rlly trust Dave, John has Nightmares and Dave thinks it's his fault, John has nightmares that Dave kills him and its starting to get to him, John is a fuckin pussy when it comes to the paranormal so RIP him, John is just an innocent human, John is more or less being haunted, Karkat is sort of in this but he's called KK bc I hate his name and this is my fucking fic, Karkats a ghost from Daves past, LITERALLY, Lots of graphic imagery tbh especially later on, M/M, No Smut, Not like ancient Egypt old but definitely older than the civil war, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Rose is a therapist, Vampire! Dave, Vampires, Witch! Jade, my chapters just get longer and longer i can't control it, sorry - Freeform, tbh just let this boy sleep, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-03 05:24:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13334388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ssleepilyy/pseuds/Ssleepilyy
Summary: “So you’re saying that ever since you moved in, he’s been having nightmares?”“Correct.”“And you don’t know what they’re about?”“Yea.”“Well obviously, you’re the problem.”_______Dave recently moved in with John and everything is going great, apart from the fact that John gets night terrors every single time he closes his eyes. It's not Dave's fault. Except that it totally is.





	1. The Dark isn't always frightening

**Author's Note:**

> So, this chapter is rlly short. It's more of a prologue. Idk. I've never done this before so i'm just shootin' at the wind hopin' to hit something. 
> 
> I'm sicker than a fucking dog so my writing may not be up to par, but i'll make it up in the next chapter or whatever. 
> 
> Anyway, hope y'all dig it!

_Dave took a step toward John and suddenly they were the closest they’ve ever been to one another, their breath mixing like a cocktail and inhaled by each other like cigarette smoke. Dave pressed his fingertips into John’s upper arm, pinning John’s back to the wall and his hands down low. Dave looked at him with eyes that were piercing and hungry and he cocked his chin up, looking down on the dark haired boy. They were only three or four inches in height different, but Dave seemed to tower over him like a skyscraper. He stood tall and intimidating and it made John’s heart beat through his chest._

__

_Dave released one of John's arms and laced his fingers into the boys curls, tugging down hard forcing John’s chin up and his neck exposed. John was frozen in Dave’s hands, perfectly free to move and run as fast he could, but still as a statue he remained. Dave cracked a small smile and began leaving kisses along Johns’ jawline and trailing up to his ear and giving it a small nip. It wasn’t much, but John felt himself melting into the floor, ready and willing to fall into the trap he is well aware has been set._

__

_His heart beat faster and harder and it beat at the sides of his skull and he felt his body relax under the blonde’s touch, like a drug was being absorbed through his skin. He knew this was on purpose, but there was only a faint voice in the back of his head screaming against the danger that he was walking himself into whereas the rest of him urged for it._

__

_Dave hovered his lips over John’s throat, releasing the boys hair and bringing his hand to the crook of John’s neck. He pressed his thumb underneath John’s chin, keeping John’s head propped up and his neck open to Dave._

__

_And then the blonde spoke. “Are you sure about this?”_

__

_And then the brunette answered. “Yes.”_

__

_And just like that, two fangs tore deep into his neck. John inhaled sharply and he couldn’t help but spasm back in pain, a hand quickly slapped over his mouth muting the scream that ripped through the air. John found his hands and immediately dug into Dave’s elbows, trying desperately to force the other off him, but Dave was cemented to the ground and unmovable. John was breathing fast and ragged, crying through Dave’s fingers for him to stop, but Dave was unwavered, pressing his teeth farther into John’s neck, each minute movement raking the brunette with white hot pain. Dave gripped John’s upper arm tight as death, and forced his shoulder to the wall with his other hand. The brunette fought valiantly beneath him but it was nothing to the blonde, just pokes and prods._

__

_Blood dripped down Dave’s chin and trailed down John’s torso, making John’s shirt wet and sticky, soaked red._

__

_And just as quick as it began, it ended. John grew weak and his breath slow, the fighting became loose until his arms slipped down to his sides and his eyes drooped to meet his lower lash line. He was cold and lax, his heart slow and inaudible. Dave was still on top of him as he drifted off into total blackness._

__

With a Jolt, John was awake and upright. He was soaked in sweat and his pajamas clung to his frame. He brought his hands up and wiped down his face, not doing much since his hands were just as sweaty as everywhere else. He licked his lips and with a quiet groan he let himself fall back to the bed. 

__

“Maybe the doctor can prescribe you something for that. Hock you some Xanax or something.” 

__

John looked around and was met by the same blonde figure that slaughtered him in his dream. Dave smiled back at him with soft brows and tossed hair, and handed John a cold washcloth. John furrowed his brows before grabbing the washcloth and patting it in various places on his face. 

__

“Y’know, woulda been nice to know that you get night terrors before I agreed to move in with you.” 

__

“Yea as if that would have kept you away.” John smiled a bit, happy to know he was safe, yet still irrationally weary. This was the sixth time he had had that nightmare since Dave moved into his small apartment with him at the beginning of the week. He grew up on horror movies so he wasn’t super quick to not write it off as an omen, but still, he had known Dave for a few years now and trusted him more than he trusted himself. 

__

“True, but at least I would have known to sleep during the day because night is strictly reserved for screaming bloody murder. Seriously, go talk to your therapist or something and see if you can get a script for sleeping meds. I just got here and you’re already chasing me off.”

__

Dave crooked a smile. They both knew full well that the only thing that’d chase Dave off was if John had an axe in hand and was coming at him full swing.

__

“I don't have a therapist, Dave. And it’s not on purpose! It only started up once you came along! You’re like some kind of curse or something!”

__

“Oh, charming. Just what every guy wants to hear.” Dave moved to sit at the end of John’s bed, reaching his hand up and gripping onto the wooden beams that held up his upper bunk. “And maybe it’s because it’s a big change from living alone to having a roommate so you’re brains’ all spaghetti tryna’ figure it out.”

__

“Maybe…” John rubbed his eyes. It was late. Sometime after 2 am he bet. He had barely gotten a wink of sleep that week and it was really starting to get to him. 

__

“What do you even dream about anyway? Gotta be something real scary to fuck up your sleep schedule as well as mine.” Dave smirked and winked at John, prompting John to throw his pillow as hard as he could into Dave’s face. 

__

“Oh yea, terrifying. I keep dreaming that this asshole moved into my apartment and keeps eating all my food and broke my ps4. It’s sending shivers down my spine just talking about it.” Dave snorted and threw John’s pillow back at him and stretched out to lay beside John. 

__

“You get what you pay for.” 

__

“I didn’t pay a damn thing for you, you’re the one paying! Rent is up at the end of the month!” John lightly punched Dave’s arm and sneered, in turn Dave put his hands up in mocking defense.

__

“I know! I was talking about myself. I thought I was paying to room with my best friend in his apartment, but instead I got Sally Screamsalot and a pillow thrown at my face.” He returned the light punch and couldn’t help but smile ear to ear. “Seriously though, what do you dream about?”

__

John’s face twisted a bit and he shifted onto his side. _Oh just that you’re a fucking monster and somehow I agree to let you painfully murder me._ “Ants.” 

__

“Ants?” Dave furrowed his brows in confusion.

__

“Yep. Just thousands and thousands of ants. Coming through the vents and out of the walls. A whole sea of little, tiny, monstrous ants.” 

__

Dave let out a small chuckle and rolled his eyes, sitting himself up and swinging his legs over the side.of the bed “Fine, don’t tell me. But definitely tell your therapist.”

__

“I don’t know why you keep mentioning a therapist when I don’t have one.” 

__

“It’s because I keep hoping you’ll catch the hint to get one.” Dave tousled John’s hair before standing up and beginning to climb the bedside ladder to get to his bunk.

__

“Wait-” John sat up in his bed, wanting to entertain one last thought. 

__

“No matter how many times you ask, I’m not gonna tuck you in and kiss you goodnight so don’t even think about it.”

__

John smiled and tilted his head a bit to the side. “If you could be one thing besides a human, what would you be?”

__

Dave thought a minute. “Probably a vampire. Why?”

__

John laid back down and stared at the beams supporting Dave’s bed. 

__

“Just curious.” 

__

And with that, the night was silent once more.

__


	2. Oh how the days seem short

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So hey, sorry for the two months in between uploading this, my life sucks. I ain't bouta say that I been busy, I just been depressed. But this was fun and provided a nice little escape so i'll probably be uploading more often and a lot longer chapters! Sorry again! Anyway, hope you like it!

“So you’re saying that ever since you moved in, he’s been having nightmares?”

“Correct.”

“And you don’t know what they’re about?”

“Yea.”

“Well obviously, you’re the problem.”

Jade was a thin framed girl with olive skin. She had green eyes that seemed to glow and long dark hair, almost black, that trailed down to the curve of her back. She had a certain warmth to her, the warmth that only the people who smile with their whole mouths can have, but with that warmth comes an icy bite that Jade seemed to put on special hold for when she was with Dave. 

“It could be a million things, maybe John’s just screwed up or something. Why’s it always gotta be me?”

“Because it always _is_ you.”

Dave huffed and leaned back against the chair he was in. It creaked against his weight and Jade squinted her eyes. Dave was not allowed to sit on her nice furniture, not after he spilled her glass of orange juice on her white couch. She thought it was fair, Dave thought he was being treated like a dog. 

“One day we really need to have a conversation about your dislike of me.”

“I don’t dislike you, I just think there needs to be extra precautions taken in your presence due to your unmistakably constant reckless and _dangerous_ behaviors.”

Dave rolled his eyes.

“What is it with you witches and hating vampires.”

“What is it with you vampires and always giving us a reason to hate you.” Jade smirked and pulled her feet up onto the couch she was sitting at, a small gesture meant to rub it into Dave’s face that comfort was a privilege. 

“Fair. But can we get back to the point?”

“Oh yes. Let’s go back to the part where you moved in with a walking, talking, to-go box and didn’t think it necessary to consult me.”

“You’re not my caretaker. And John is not a fucking to-go meal, he’s my friend. My best friend. You know what those are right?”

Jade glared at him and Dave feared for a moment that he might have a hex placed upon him.

“Vampires and humans can’t be friends. It never ends well. You’re supposed to meddle with your own kind and humans only come in when you murder them in cold blood.”

“Wow, racist much?”

“You know I’m right Dave. You remember how it ended last time. And the time before. And the time before. I don’t want to have to deal with you when you come to me crying with John’s blood soaked into your clothes.”

Dave fell silent. Not a day went by where he didn’t hate himself over what he has done. 

“It’s not like that- won’t be like that. This is different, John is different. I won’t hurt him, Jade.”

Jade looked at him skeptically. She pitied him in a way. She was born a witch, magic ran through her blood. It shaped her into who she is and she never doubted what she was meant to become. But Dave was human once. He was born with two loving parents and was the youngest of three brothers. Dave thought he knew who he was and what he was meant to become, a promising soldier like his father and older brothers. But then he died. Not by the hands of an enemy fighter, but a demon he thought not to exist. He came back and survival meant something new. He had to watch his family grow old from a distance, and die from a distance. Jade knew that Dave was so full of life, but it had no comparison to the death that hid inside him. 

“I believe that you don’t want to, but you have no idea what the future holds, Dave. You’re fooling yourself if you think you can keep this up with him. He doesn’t even know the danger that is around him, how close he is to death-”

“What do you want me to do Jade?! Tell him? ‘Hey John, by the way, I’m fucking Nosferatu, anyway when’s rent due again?’”

“I want you to be honest with yourself!” Jade rose to her feet. “You know your urges and you know what suppressing them leads to! You want to be friends with John? Want to live with him? Fine! Good luck! But you know damn well that your secret will come out and it will come out bloody and screaming and gasping for air! Just like it always has and just like it always will!”

“You have no fucking idea what will happen!” He stood to meet her. “I didn’t choose to be like this and at least I’m fucking trying to be normal! I am well aware of the things I’ve done and I would give my life to reverse it but I can’t! I get that you think I’m a walking murder machine that poses a threat to all the innocent people but I can control myself-”

“You _can’t_ control yourself! You and I both know that. Maybe right now you can be calm and collected but one day you will lose and it will cost John his life! You _are_ a threat to innocent people and you’re just too blinded by this need to go back to who you were before you died to see it! It's been more than a century, Dave, wake up!”

Dave took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Jade always looked at him so one sided. He was nothing more than his mistakes. He opened his eyes again and bit the inside of his cheek.

“Thanks for having me.” He picked up his jacket from the chair and left.  
_______________________________________

 

There was a soft hum from the small fan stationed in the corner of the office next to a neat glass desk which held an immense amount of books scattered atop of it. John found it comforting, reminding him of his dad’s office packed with space heaters and humidifiers. Is that something he should share? He didn’t really know how this worked. 

“I take it you’ve never been to therapy before?”

John scrunched his eyebrows, “What makes you say that?”

“We’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes and you haven't said anything more than your name.”

“Oh yea, I-I dunno’, I guess I’m kind of spacey when it comes to introductions. S-sorry what was yours again? Your name?” John let out an awkward laugh. Had it really been twenty minutes?

“Rose. And you’re fine, I myself am a bit of a mind-in-the-clouds kind of person too. I usually don’t expect people to start telling me their life story the moment they walk through the door, unless that’s what they feel comfortable doing.”

“Yea…” John twiddled his thumbs. “You see I really don’t _need_ therapy, like I don’t have this whole crazy life that I need to be psychoanalyzed for, I just have this one thing lately that i’m hoping to figure out and that's it. I don’t really even know why I’m here, my friend just kept saying to go so I went but honestly I think this is just a waste of time.”

“I see. Well then, how about we get this show on the road and tell me about this problem and i’ll see what I can do.”

John thought for a moment, not really knowing how to start. He didn't even know if he wanted to share, but that's the point of therapy wasn't it. “I’ve been having these nightmares lately, ever since my best friend moved into my apartment, and they’re pretty disturbing?”

“You’re asking me if they’re disturbing?”

“No- I- I know they’re disturbing, I just. I don’t know why I phrased that like that. I’m bad with this kind of thing.”

“You’re fine, trust me, i’ve seen worse.” 

Rose was exactly what you’d expect a therapist to look like. She dressed very business casual and had short-ish blonde hair. She wore minimal makeup and seemed like she knew everything in the world. 

“Uhm. Okay so. The dreams are all the same. Like one dream, one exact dream that I have… every night. Uhm. It always starts out with Dave- uh- my best friend and current roommate- sort of… touching me? No- not like touching me, touching me, but like- like he has me up against the wall- and- and that doesn’t sound any better. I mean like- like it’s tense and he’s like right there and he’s like. Okay wait, start over.”

“Is this a sex dream you’re going to talk to me about?”

John flushed bright red and sputtered in embarrassment.

“N-no! I know it sounds that way but it’s not! Its- something’s wrong. He’s close to me and yes, it’s kind of sexual- I can admit that- but there’s this feeling, I don’t know how to describe it. I know something’s wrong. The situation is dangerous and i’m not doing anything about it because… because it feels good even though I know that i’m in danger? I know what’s going to happen but it’s like this drug is taking me over. It’s like i’m scared but I want it to happen. And I don’t know why.” John ground his teeth together, feeling ridiculous but beyond the point of taking it back. 

“And then what happens?”

“And then he asks me if i’m ‘sure about this.’ And I say ‘yes.’ I don’t know why I say yes! And him asking me if i’m sure? That means that maybe I convinced him into this. Like I caused it. I... wanted it.” There was a long pause after John spoke while he mulled it over. How could he ever want something so awful?

“Then what?” Rose tilted her head to the side, intrigued, wanting to know what John meant, but she asked questions to further the story, making sure she got all the pieces before trying to make the picture.

John scoffed and threw his hands in the air, “And then he fucking turns into a monster and kills me!”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Exactly what it says on the tin. He bites into my neck and ignores me struggling beneath him, trying to push him off or scream which I can’t even do because he has his hand over my mouth! And- and it hurts! Its like someone started a fire in your blood and its rushing all over your body! And I can feel it like it’s actually happening! And then, everytime I go unconscious, and he’s still leeching on me, I wake up and there he is! But he’s just… him. And there’s no danger and I can relax. But every night this happens! Every night! I’m exhausted.”

There was a break as Rose thought about what to say. “Hm. Okay. Let’s start from the top, shall we? You and Dave get into a situation in which you said was sort of sexual?”

“Yea. I guess.” John shifted, feeling awkward. 

“You guess?”

“I mean… it has those vibes but… I think it was more… I don’t know. It felt more like… this is gonna sound weird but… predator-prey? I don’t know. It was like he was controlling me and I was only going along because I was caught in his claws. But at the same time…” 

“You enjoyed it.”

John shot his glance to the wall, avoiding eye contact and trying to remember how long this session was, not enjoying where this conversation was headed. 

“Tell me, was it the vulnerability you enjoyed, or was it just the fact that it was him?”

John’s face twisted in confusion, “I don’t follow.”

“Do you think the reason you went along was because you liked being the ‘prey’- in your words- or was it because even though the roles were clear, you wanted him, even if it meant hurting yourself.”

John shook his head, “absolutely not. I don’t like Dave like that. He’s my best friend. And no to the other thing too. I don’t like being ‘ _prey_ ’”

“Alright. Then tell me this, Is sex something that makes you feel vulnerable? Afraid even?”

“What?!”

“I’m thinking that maybe the reason it was sexual in the beginning was only to enhance the feeling of vulnerability and powerlessness in the situation. The only thing that is then to think about is how that correlates with the real world. How is Dave making you feel out of control?”

And as if in an act of God himself, the timer on Rose’s phone rang and John was on his feet immediately. 

“Well thank you for your time, I found it very helpful! Same time next week? Okay, goodbye!” And without so much as a look in Rose’s direction, he hurried out the door.

_______________________________________

 

The two of them arrived back at the apartment relatively close, Dave first followed by John not minutes after. They were both worn out and clearly wore it on their faces. 

“What happened to you?” Dave asked from the couch as John came in and kicked his shoes off quite frustratedly.

“Took your advice and went to therapy, but all I got was a bunch of outlandish theories and a therapist who probably thinks I was molested or some shit.”

Dave chuckled, “Were you?”

John rolled his eyes and walked over to sit next to Dave on the couch, plopping himself down on the sunken bit, “Don’t be an idiot.”

Dave smiled and let out a sigh. “Can’t say my afternoon was much better, I got into an argument with a friend.”

“That doesn’t sound fun. What about?” John turned toward Dave and rested his head on his hand.

“She thinks I’m going to repeat a mistake I made a few times awhile back.” 

John’s turn to chuckle, “Will you?”

Dave smirked but he clenched his back teeth, “Don’t be an idiot.”

“What mistake is she thinking you’ll make again?”

Dave’s face dropped a bit and he said the first thing that came to mind, “Drinking and driving.” 

John perked up, “You drink?”

“Yea, well- not anymore but I used to you know. And I sometimes would drive. And she thinks I’m heading down that road again. Literally.” Dave mentally kicked himself. 

“You better not. You can kill someone doing that shit.”

Dave nodded, “Yea, that’s what she seems to think.”

“ _Seems_? Drinking and driving is dangerous, Dave. People die every day from it. I’ll punch you in the jaw if I ever catch you getting your keys while inebriated.” John lightly punched his shoulder and let out a loud sigh. “So what do you want for dinner. I was thinking take-out.”

“Sure, whatever you want. I’m not that hungry tonight so I may just skip dinner, but go ahead and get something.” He let his head fall back and stared at the ceiling. 

John raised an eyebrow, “You okay?”

Dave stayed quiet for a moment before turning to meet John’s stare, “Those dreams you’ve been having lately, the ones you wake up screaming from, they don’t have anything to do with me, do they?”

John stomach dropped and he found himself feeling scared. He shook his head, mostly to bring himself back to rationality, and pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth. “No, no- nothing about you. Just random things that I need a shrink to help me figure out.” He let out an awkward laugh and ran his fingers through his hair. “So, I know you said you weren’t going to eat, but just in case, Chinese sound good?”

“Yea, sure. Chinese is fine.”

Dave smiled and John pulled out his phone and walked to the kitchen to make the call. He returned his gaze to the ceiling. John always was a terrible liar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, thats whats up!
> 
> Tune in next time for a fun time! It'll have a lot of violence in it because it includes Dave's meal plan and his past, as well as Dave's intrusive vampire thoughts when around John! It'll be very focused on him and his past attempts at relationships. Probably angsty. Blood, guts, and gore. Yea.
> 
> It will definitely be longer.
> 
> Anyway, see you in my next episode


	3. 1956

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So,,, disregard what I said in the last chapter notes about what this chapter would be about. That was 8 months ago and now i'm on a writing kick and decided to take it elsewhere but hopefully i'll be updating weekly from now on! I've got this whole thing all figured out and hopefully I won't abandon it this time round! So take this long ass chapter as my apology.

What time was she coming? Dave didn’t really know. He knew that Jade should be there soon. All he needed was the message to appear on the screen of his phone and he’d be out. He bounced his leg quick with anxiety, his heel making a _tap tap tap_ sound as it hit the carpet each second. The couch felt too much like a springboard at the moment.

This was supposed to happen three days prior, but the scumbag they were so tediously tracking went and got himself killed, leaving them to start from scratch. Luckily, there’s no shortage of brutalities in their pristine pocket of sunshine. 

And just as if the world really wanted to kick Dave’s ass- John’s popcorn finished popping, thus commencing movie night. John plopped down next to Dave on the couch, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table and resting the enormous popcorn-filled bowl onto his lap. He shoveled a handful into his mouth and turned his head to smile a toothy grin, acting like a child with an orange slice. He gulped down his popcorn and reached a buttery hand to retrieve the TV remote.

“So what are we gonna watch tonight? Are you feeling more action or comedy?”

“Uh…” Dave trailed off. How was he supposed to tell John he had to bail? He hadn’t said anything yet about his having to leave, and he didn’t really know how to mention it now without seeming like a total dick to John. When Jade texts him, he’d probably just say some story about a cat in a tree and bolt. 

_Or you could save the trouble and kill him._

Dave bit his cheek and gave his head a little shake.

“Action.”

“Action it is! I was kind of hoping you’d say that because i’ve been wanting to go on like a Batman movie spree and if you’re down I added all the movies to my watchlist and-”  
Shut him up.

“-we could totally just hunker down for the night and watch Christian Bale kick some Gotham ass and order a pizza or something. Could be like a fun little-”

_Just kill him already he’s right there._

“-bonding session for us! Plus you told me you’ve never seen any batman-”

_You know you want to._

“-movies which is a total disgrace if you’re going to have me as a roommate and-”

_Do it._

“-sleep 3 feet from my batman posters and not know anything about them and-”

“Okay! You’ve convinced me! Roll the clip.”

Dave forced a half smile as John giddily flipped through his movies and started up The Dark Knight. 

_You’re pathetic._

_‘Why? Because I won’t kill my best friend?’_

__

_Bingo._

__

_‘Shut up.’_

__

_One day you’re gonna have to accept me._

__

_‘Not really.’_

John nudged Dave’s side, his signal that something cool is about to happen and Dave should pay attention. He kept his eyes on the screen, trying to focus on the movie and not the incessant voice in his head. 

_You can’t tell me that you don’t want to._

_‘I don’t want to.’_

_Indulge me for a moment, I’ll show you how much you want to hurt him- what you really want to do._

_‘Fuck off.’_

_If you want me gone, you know what you have to do._

_‘Yea, time and place, bud.’_

_Right here, right now?_

_‘Is there like another room I can leave you ‘till you quit crying?’_

_Not that easy, Dave. Only one remedy, and it’s sitting right next to you._

Dave looked over at John, whose eyes were glued to the screen, cramming handful after handful of popcorn into his mouth by the minute. 

_‘He’s more butter than blood right now.’_

_You and your jokes. Imagine how sweet he probably tastes._

_‘I’m more the savory type.’_

_Come on Dave. I’m in your head. I know all you want right now is to open up a vein, tell me, why not his?_

_‘Because he’s a good person. And I actually like John.’_

_You’ve actually liked a few folks before as well, didn’t stop you then._

_‘Shut up. I don’t have to tell you that that was different.’_

_Really? How so?_

_‘Just shut up.’_

_He’s not even paying attention. You could catch him off guard right now and he won’t be ready for a fight._

Dave spared a glance at John, who was chipmunk-cheeked with popcorn and eyes glued to the screen like he hadn’t seen the movie everyday for the entire year it came out. The poor boy who was so enthralled with all things far from mundane truly was blind to the darkness beside him. It made Dave’s stomach flip, thinking of the things that could be happening to John right now if it were another vampire besides himself sitting on the couch watching his dumbass. 

_‘I’m not gonna do shit.’_

_You could easily restrain him. He’d be yours for the taking._

_‘I can easily restrain anyone, that’s the point of this vast vampiric strength.’_

_Yes! So use it!_

_‘Nah.’_

_You’re holding onto all of these weak parts of yourself. I see your darkness Dave. Accept that you aren’t the human you were, accept that that died with you! Let yourself become so much more._

_‘You mean, ‘hey stop having a soul, its annoying me’.’_

_You’re distancing yourself from me, but what you fail to grasp is that I am you. I wasn’t just created out of thin air, I am every part of yourself that you pushed down-_

_‘I grasp that just fine, thank you Mr. I Give The Same Speech 10 Million Times. You’ll get your Kool-aid soon so just shut the fuck up or else i'll purposefully go anorexic on your ass’_

Dave crossed his arms and reclined back in the couch, pretending to give a shit about a guy in a bat mask. He gripped his phone in his hand, almost praying for Jade’s text like the irony didn’t become him. He hated when his little mind friend would talk to him. It felt like a shitty spin of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Like having the infection of vampirism corrupt his corpse wasn’t enough, now every time he gets the slightest craving he gets some ansty little fucker begging for his soul too. 

“This guy is my favorite character in the whole movie!” John excitedly started, pointing to the screen wildly so Dave wouldn’t miss it, snapping the blonde out of his thoughts and toward the familiar face of Morgan Freeman, “His name is Lucius Fox and he’s like the super cool tech guy. He can build anything in the world that Bruce wants, like later he builds this thing that uses people's’ phones as a sonar device so Bruce can see who’s where and when! I mean, of course Batman and the Joker are cool but they’re super unrealistic- Lucius Fox however, that's’ a man I could believe in y'know! Someone is probably out there right now dreamin’ up tech just like that, only needing materials to put it into play. Its insane!”

Dave smiled listening to John gush. He’s never heard John monologue about anything as passionately as he does about his favorite character in whatever movie is on the screen at the moment. He always has one and he always needs to make sure everyone knows who and why. 

“I’m surprised,” Dave grabbed a handful of popcorn for himself and stuffed it into his mouth, “You usually like the badass crime fighter, not the computer geek. I would have expected you to favor the main man or even the psychopath characters before this guy.”

“No way! I never like the psychopaths, they’re all so gross to me. It’s like death this, blood that, chaos here, terror there- we get it. But a world on fire isn’t a fun place to be. Always root for the good guy, at least that's my motto. Plus, maybe I just like Morgan Freeman.” 

“Maybe. And I don’t know, sometimes rooting for the bad guy is fun.” Dave smirked, instigating John.

“Yea sure, if you’re a bad guy yourself! Only people who identify with the crazy killers root for them.”

“So you’re saying that if I was just pining on the Joker, then i’m some kind of crazy killer?” 

_You were once upon a time._

_‘Dude, literally butt out.’_

“Maybe, how would I know?” He sent Dave a small half smile indicating he was about to say something stupid, “Either that or you just wanna bang the psycho.”

“Ha! You got me! The best fucks are the ones where you bleed before you come.” Dave wiggled his eyebrows at John which only tempted a grimace from the brunette and a shove to distance the other far, far away. 

“You’re gross for that.”

“You brought it up!”

“Yea but you didn’t have to finish it like that!” 

“But I so did.”

John rolled his eyes and diverted his attention back to the screen, flashing a scene of what appeared to be skype call about some important gang stuff. 

_You’re so right though. Experience is such a brutally honest creature isn’t it?_

_‘Do you ever fucking shut up.’_

_Yes but you’re too stubborn a character to make me._

_‘Lemme ask you a question.’_

_Hm_

_‘How many dicks did you have to suck before you realized everything you say sounds exactly the way penis breath smells?’_

_You and your mouth. If only your mother were alive to hear how your tongue has changed._

Daves’ shoulders stiffened a bit and he adjusted in his position.

_‘My mother wasn’t the most polite lipped person either. And I’d prefer it if you kept her image far the fuck away from anything to do with you.’_

_You’d rather discuss your father?_

_‘I’d rather you leave me the hell alone.’_

_Simple solution to your worries, Dave._

_‘Get out of my head.’_

_Finally getting to you, now, am I? Maybe we should talk about your mopheaded friend with the guttural disposition._

Dave shook his head, pretending he could rattle the little shit around inside the walls of his mind. He wasn’t going to entertain another word toward the thing, whatever it was. It only ever blabbered on like this while he was with a human. 

“Look! Look! Look!” John reached over and gripped Daves upper arm in a frenzy, “This is one of the best parts! Look!” He shook Dave's arm like a maraca before being pushed off by the blonde.

“I’m looking!” He was met with the face of the clown from the beginning, waltzing into one end of the skype call with the stride of a dead man walking. 

Before he could continue watching though, his phone vibrated in his hand and quick as lighting he read the notification on his screen. A single text from Jade: Here. He shot up from the couch, making John jump while rushing to gather his jacket and keys. 

“Where the hell are you going?!”

Dave slowed in his movements, cursing to himself silently for forgetting about coming up with a cover story. “I- uh- an emergency with a friend! She’s got- uh- She needs help with a thing and I have to go now! I’ll be back later though, sorry about movie night! Just watch it without me, I promise I’ll be here all day tomorrow and we can binge all the Batman movies you want!”

Dave had already closed the door before a very confused and irritated John even had a chance to ask when he’d be home. 

_Dinner time._

_______________________________________________________

 

_‘December 3rd, 1956.’_

It was all he had written on the top of the loose leaf paper. He tapped the pencil against the edge of the table. The thing about time was that eventually you don’t know what to write. You run out of things to say, to mean. He had ruined almost an entire notebooks worth of paper just scrawling out different ways to say hello.

“Goddamnit.” He threw down the pencil in frustration and leaned back in his chair, defeated. 

“You’ve been sitting here for hours and still nothing, I’m sure whatever it is can wait until tomorrow. Give your brain a rest.” 

Dave turned in his chair to meet the figure cross legged on the couch a few feet away, having long since finished his book and bored with the lack of conversation. 

“It can’t wait until tomorrow. I need it done tonight.” Dave ran his hand through his hair worriedly. “I should of had it done this morning but my mind and hands just aren’t working.” 

“Well, maybe I can help. What is it?” The boy rose from the couch and walked over to meet the blonde at the table, pulling up a chair beside the other and situating himself on the task at hand. 

Dave smiled a bit and switched his legs to the side of the chair so he could face his friend. “I appreciate the sentiment KK, but it’s not exactly something you can help me with.”

“Maybe so, but it’s worth a try. You’ve been here all day slaving away at this and all you’ve got so far is-” He slid the piece of paper toward himself and read the scribbled line, “The date.” He smiled at Dave and picked up the pencil the other had threw down, “What is it you’re writing?”

Dave’s face dropped for a moment and he cleared his throat, “A letter home.” Technically he wasn’t lying. 

“Oh, well that’s the easiest thing to write! How on earth does a genius like yourself not know how to write to your folks? Just say Hi and tell them about your week, wish them a Merry upcoming Christmas and sign your name. Not that hard!” The brunette slid the paper back and placed the pencil in front of the vampire as if it really were that easy. 

“It not- I- I can’t just say that. I have to make it something special.” Dave huffed and picked the pencil back up. “It has to be from the heart and all that.”

KK thought for a moment before rising from his chair and going over to his massive bookshelf that took up half the wall of the living room, gliding his hands over his collection before landing on a blue spined book and plucking it from his place. He walked back over to the table and plopped the book over the piece of paper before taking a seat back beside the blonde.

Dave shot him a look before sitting up straight in his chair and examining the book in front of him. He was met with what appeared to be a little girl consoling a distraught lion while a dog and two other odd characters watched on. 

“The Wonderful Wizard of Oz?” He read the title aloud and faced back to his friend, “Are you serious?” 

“Of course I’m serious.”

“It’s a children's book.”

“It’s a classic story about courage, love, and family! You want it to be special and from the heart? Give them this book.” 

KK loved to read and had a book for every circumstance possible. He loved books that kept him on the edge of his seat, but tended to pick first the ones with feel good endings and love everlasting. It meant a lot that he was actually giving Dave a book, not only to keep but to send home, and Dave knew that. He wasn’t going to push back on such a grand gesture, even if it did confuse him.

“Okay, but I still have to write something. And my family never really were big on reading books, hell they’ll probably get this in the post and think ‘wow, a new coaster!’” He smiled at his friend and gave him a joking nudge, even though the statement blew the brunette out of the water. 

“They better not use that as a coaster! That is a timeless classic and should definitely be passed on to your siblings children and their children after them and theirs after that and so on and so forth! Books are meant to be enjoyed, not looked at! Especially not when-” The boy would have gone on all night had Dave not slung his arm around the others shoulder and pulled him into a bear hold.

“Nobody’s gonna use your book as a coaster I promise! I’ll write a little P.S. at the bottom telling them to send it back if they get the urge!”

The other struggled under the vampires arm, twisting and pushing on his torso but eventually giving up as he never won when the two wrestled. Dave released the other with a gentle push and a hair tousle. “One day i’m gonna punch your teeth out for always shutting me up like that!” 

“Oh yea, your flimsy little fist would bounce off my cheek like a trampoline! Plus there’s no other way of getting you to shut up except for physical force so what do you expect me to do?”

“Anything but that!” KK shot him a glare before softening his face and standing from the chair. “I’ve gotta head out for the evening shift, but good luck on your letter. I’ll be back before curfew, okay? Also, are you planning on staying here tomorrow or not because if so I need to swtich some things around”

“Okay. And I don’t know I’ll let you know when you come back. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.” The blonde followed his friend toward the door with his eyes and caught a smirk while the other was throwing on his coat and shoes.

“What wouldn’t you do?” 

Dave returned his smirk and nodded in laughing agreement, “Anything legal.” He sent KK a wink before the other laughed and closed the door behind him. 

And then it was just Dave, a piece of paper, a blue childrens book, and the infernal thoughts of a disgruntled vampire. Dave threw his head back and groaned, an act of composure before he closed his eyes and thought of what to write. He sat for awhile. A long while. When he opened his eyes the once vibrant sun illuminating his window had dimmed and started to prepare to set. He let out a sigh and picked up his pencil, scrawling out the only message he could think of. 

Once all had been said and done, the sun nestled into the horizon and the bite of nightly cold setting in, Dave folded his letter and stuck it inside an envelope, bookmarking it in between the pages of the story KK had given him. He walked to the foyer of the small house and slipped on his shoes and grabbed his coat, even though he didn’t need it. Vampires didn’t have circulation anyway, the cold didn’t matter. But it was a sense of normalcy and Dave would hold on to normalcy with his life.

He walked the route almost entirely on autopilot, the path to the old cemetery so etched into his mind he was sure that if he were to ever need sleep, he would probably sleep walk right to his family's’ headstones. 

He stood at the gate, something that had once been a magnificent and towering entrance, silver doors with designs as intricate as a doily and high concrete walls that intimidated trespassers, reduced now to nothing but a stone outline and a measly rusted cell door. Sometimes he thought about building it back to it original glory, but who was he to kid. The cemetery hadn’t received a new resident in almost 50 years and had long since been left to be overtaken by weeds. The church that once stood benevolent beside it creaked with emptiness as it settled deeper into the mud around it each year. The crucifixes that linesd its interior probably fallen to the floor years ago with not a priest or a prayer to place them back on the wall. 

He took a sharp inhale as he swung the gate open, the iron burning into his hand as he stepped into the churchyard. His eyes ached as his head immediately seared like lava was pouring from his ears, his body felt heavy and hollow with every step forward that he took but still he pushed on. He didn’t care about the pain. It was nowhere near the penance he deserved and he welcomed it with an open heart. 

He hurried through the maze of tombstones and angels and crypts, walking in between the areas being cautious not to walk over any bodies, remembering how his mother used to tell him that ‘no matter how rotted your bones are, if the devil interrupts your path to heaven above, you’re soul becomes damned.’ And Dave wouldn’t be the devil who damns any souls. 

Once he arrived to his family’s plot, his body feeling ready to fall to pieces and sink into the mud, he coughed down some blood and shoved his shaking hands into the jacket pocket retrieving the book and envelope. After a second of thought, he took the envelope out of the small book and stuffed the story back into his pocket. KK was appalled at the thought of it being used as a coaster, he couldn’t imagine the look on his face if he knew it would just lay to waste in a graveyard. 

“There was s-supposed to be a boo-ook to go with this letter but- but I know only two of you ever learned to- to read anyway so fat good that would b- be. Plus you- you probably have this story up in heaven with y-you all anyway.” He spit the words out, trying to keep his tongue from ripping out of his mouth with each syllable. His vision started to falter and spot with ink black smudges and he knew he was running out of time.

“I just wanted to say that I- I miss y’all - and- and I really hope that you’re not all up in clouds cursing at- at me to leave you all the hell alone every ye- year because this s- shit really hurts.” He stifled out a laugh and imagined the faces of his family horrified at his attempts to visit them each year. He knew that his god-fearing family would never accept him as the creature he was corrupted into, but he hoped that maybe as their son and their brother, that maybe there was some love in their hearts to spare. He’d never really know. 

He stumbled backwards a bit as his legs started to give out, the veins in his arms bulging so far to the surface of his skin he thought if he’d flick his arm to the side they’d whip out like lassos. His hearing started to fade in and out, a ringing and a buzzing constantly beating at the sides of his cranium and he grit his teeth to keep them in place. He had to go. 

“I- I wish I could s-stay long-longer but. Hal- hallowed ground and all.” He cleared his throat, his chest tight and his breath ragged, and he staggered to the lonely grave just ever so slightly farther from the ones he had been talking to. He didn’t even care to look at the name so corroded in the stone as he stood just in front of it, placing the letter upon the empty plot and turning on his heels to leave. He graced one last look at the sky and made his way back to the cemetery gates, going over the contents of the letter in his mind.

_‘December 3rd, 1956._

_This will be my last letter. Not my last visit, but i’ve come to realize that after so long you all are probably so tired of being disgraced by me and all that I’ve done. I understand. I’m tired too._

_Sometimes I wish God would come down from the clouds and strike me down, maybe I could even see you all’s heavenly faces in his light before I am faced with an eternity of black. But I don’t think God cares enough about my measly life to alter it. He’s busy with the humans who’ll change it for the better, who’ll lead it into the light and far, far away from the darkness he abandoned me in._

_I’m okay with that. I’ve learned that living is more or less a task of proving oneself and that I have proved much beyond a doubt that I am far away from his saving grace._

_Heaven can do without me._

_One day my body will rot, and my soul will be burning in hellfire, but until then I’m gonna try my best to become the person you all so tirelessly raised. The person who came to life many, many years ago from today, and died many years later on the same day._

_I could only hope that you all know nothing of what i’ve become, blind to my whereabouts and my deeds even to this day. That would be the one miracle I could ever pray for._

_I’m so, so sorry for everything. Just. Everything._

_With endless love,_  
_Dave.’_

________________________________________________________

 

Jade sat in her car, listening to it’s groaning interior and hum of the engine as if it were a song playing from the radio. It was an incredibly old hunk of metal, back from before the civil rights act had even been thought of, and it pained Dave to the core that Jade remained adamant on driving it until ‘the parts for it could no longer be found in the world.’ She loved the car, even though it sputtered down roads and spit when it came to a stop. It gave her a sense of pride, her first car, one of the few modern technologies she had embraced with glee and she would be damned if she were to ever let it leave her possession. She even had a place picked for it to rest when the day would come when it finally coughed out its last bout of motor oil. 

Dave approached the car feverishly, opening the door with such ferocity that he almost ripped it from the frame, which earned him a rather scolding glare from his witch friend. 

“I know you’re jumping out of your skin but leave my car out of it!”

Dave grumbled a small apology and that was that. She started up the fossil and it gagged a few times before lurching forward, Dave biting his nails and sparing one last look at the apartment building that held his friend he so hurriedly abandoned. He knew John would probably be pissed at him when he returned, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle. The real disturbing thoughts came from what would have happened had he not left. 

“So have you thought about telling him?” Jade questioned, knowing exactly where Dave’s mind was without her eyes leaving the road. 

“Fuck no.” 

She gruffed out a sigh. “You’re gonna have to one day.”

“No I’m not.” 

“So then you’re just gonna leave him?”

Dave turned to look at Jade, furrowing his brows. “What do you mean?”

“When things get too much to ignore, especially the non-aging part, you’re just gonna… leave? I mean, that’s what I assume if you’re never gonna tell him.”

Dave sat and thought on it for a moment. He guessed he’d never really had the opportunity to ever know somebody long enough to where they thought something was up, usually per his own misfire. 

“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t wanna think about it.”

“You should think about it. I’ve been thinking about it.” 

Dave raised his eyebrows, “You’ve been thinking about it?”

“Mhm. I’ve been thinking that if you’re going to live with him, he should know what you are.” Dave rolled his eyes and shoved his hands in his pockets. This again. “And I think that it would be a good idea too. I mean, if he knew what you were then first and foremost he could decide whether he wanted to remain in your life, put himself in control of the situation. Give him the upper hand in a manner of speaking.”

“Yea and he’ll end up running for the hills the second he realizes I’m not fucking with him. But that’s what you want anyway so of course you’d love this line of thinking.”

Jade repositioned her hands on the steering wheel and sat up a bit straighter in her seat. “And second of all,” She continued, ignoring his bitterness, “I think that of all the people you’ve ever befriended, you matter just as much to him as he does to you.”

Dave flicked his eyes to the window and laughed, “Yea, I’m sure. But even John has his limits.”

“I don’t think this would be one of them.” Jades’ words fell sincerely from her lips, a rare moment of warmth toward her fanged companion, especially after such a brutal assault on her car. 

Dave stayed quiet. He knew of John’s love for all things supernatural, hell, every TV show, movie, play, book, song, or story including some otherworldly entity was probably archived somewhere within the halls of Johns’ head, but even with all of that Dave knew it was strictly loved for in fiction. John loved all things horror but was still afraid of the dark when push comes to shove.

“Look, you know I am no way in support of you living with that boy, but I’d sleep a lot better at night knowing that at least he understands how grisly the arrangement could turn out. And I think he would too.” Jade shot him a look, “How is he sleeping?”

Dave focused his eyes on the vintage dashboard, biting the side of his tongue before grueling out his response, “The same.”

The car churned its way through the last intersection traffic light they would face before it was just barren road ahead and not a soul for miles. Dave always found it funny how quickly a place could switch from a cityscape to nothing but earth. It reminded him that cities were not the heart of the areas, but the quiet in-betweens that graced beside them. 

“Doesn’t that concern you?”

“Of course it concerns me but I don’t know what the fuck you expect me to do about it. You’re the one with the magic, can’t you just give him an enchanted bottle of melatonin and we can call it a day?”

“You know I can’t do that. And either way, this is your problem, you need to fix it yourself. I’ve already told you what I think you should do.”

“You don’t seem too hesitant to get involved with my problems any other time.” Dave shot her a glare and nodded toward the trunk of the vehicle. 

Jade scoffed, “You’re lucky I’m involved.” 

The two of them motored down the road, passing scattered gas stations and ma and pa shops. 

“Who is it anyway?” Dave questioned, even though he really couldn’t care less. 

“Not the worst of the worst, but he’s definitely responsible for the anguish of a few families and friends.”

“What’d he do?”

“He’s a drug dealer. Sells laced shit to anyone who’ll buy. He fucked up quite a few young heads and has two overdoses on his hands. One laying in the hospital as a vegetable and the other in the ground, both not even old enough to buy cigarettes.”

“Damn.” Dave shook his head. People were fucked up. That’s the one thing that always stayed the same through every year he lived through. People were just plain fucked up and it was his pleasure to bring the bastards to their knees. 

“Agreed.” Jade let out a small huff. She hated this. Everything about it. She hated facing evil only to bring it to more evil, and with every justification she had ever forced herself to grasp, it was murder. Plain, cold, and simple. And she orchestrated it in its entirety. It almost made her sick, but she was used to it by now. Maybe she would be afraid if she were to die, but witches were immortal. There was no hell for her. Just time and time alone. “What did you tell John you were doing?”

“I told him a friend had an emergency and needed my help, though i’m sure he didn’t believe that for shit. He’s probably pissed as hell that I just up and ran out right in the middle of movie night.”

Jade smiled, “Movie night?”

“Yea,” Dave returned her smile, “John’s a movie fanatic so once a week we get together and marathon movies, usually it’s the same action movie with the same plot just played out with different characters, but other times he’ll switch it up and do a horror movie or romantic comedy.”

“So what were you guys watching tonight before you ran out?” Jade loved to hear tid-bits like this. It kept Dave in a better light than his darkest moments offered. Made her feel better about helping such a damned soul. Especially when said soul is laughing with his human best friend to 27 dresses. 

“The Dark Knight. Yknow, Batman and all that.”

“I’m familiar! That’s a good pick. I think I have it in my DVD collection back at my place actually.”

Dave laughed, “I didn’t take you for the action movie type. Maybe one day you should join me and John, i’m sure you two could muse on and on about all the movies you guys have seen that I haven’t.”

Jade huffed a laugh through her nose and gave him a quick smile, before her mind pulled her back to their beginning conversation regarding the mortal. Her smiled dropped slowly and she twisted her hands on the steering wheel, “Do you even know what he dreams about, Dave?” 

The vampire’s smile faded too and he slouched back into the passenger seat and let out a sigh, answering the question in silence. Jade pursed her lips but followed his lead and the two drove the rest of the way without a word. 

 

________________________________________________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know what you're thinking, why the fuck would anyone care about a letter Dave wrote in 1956? 
> 
> Well maybe it's important and will come to further the story in the near future. 
> 
> Or maybe not. 
> 
> Who knows? 
> 
> Anyways, hope y'all liked it!


	4. The Title of the Hour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, brace yourselves! This chapters a doozy! 
> 
> Also, Happy New Year y'all! Hope 2019 treats you well!
> 
> My resolution is to stop saying the word 'y'all' so much. I sound like some country bumpkin. I mean I guess I am if you count suburbia Maryland as country bumpkin. The land of cocaine housewives and Crabs! MD has it all!

“I mean, it’s ridiculous! Who does that?!” John huffed and crossed his arms over his chest in annoyance. “Where could he have possibly gone off too? It was 11 o'clock!”

“He did say his friend had an emergency.”

“Like hell his friend had an emergency!” John threw his arms up into the air,” The way he left so fast and was tripping over his words sounded like his friend just showed up with better plans for the night and he didn’t know how to tell me.” 

“Is that what you think happened?” Rose leaned back in her chair and tilted her head slightly to the side. John had been ranting about the movie night disaster for almost half the session, which really didn’t bother her, but she wanted to try to get to the more pressing matters before her timer sung its song.

“That’s what I know happened.” John gruffed and crinkled his nose.

He had attempted to have a conversation with Dave about it the next day, but it didn’t really prove anything fruitful as he got the same vague emergency lie and a half-assed apology. Dave did fulfil his promise and they watched all the Batman movies the entire day, but that wasn’t really the point and he was still really, really upset.

“How do you know?”

“Because I just know. And I bet the plans weren’t even some big fun party, I mean, he said his friend was a girl so it was probably some pop-up booty call that he just had to respond to!”

“You think he left to go hook-up with somebody?” Rose raised an eyebrow.

“No. Well. Yes. I don’t know! All I know is that he left in a hurry and that there definitely was no emergency. And instead of tell me the truth he just decided to wait until movie night was already in full swing and then spring me some stupid lie and leave!” John’s face was flushed with frustration. This had really been bugging him but he couldn’t really talk about it with Dave. He made it clear that John wasn’t to know what happened and John was just supposed to deal with it, which in turn bugged John even more. “Everything was already planned and set up, even the popcorn was already made, and then right as the movie was getting good, he runs out! It’s bullshit! Don’t you agree?!”

“I agree.” Rose leaned forward in her chair and rested her elbows on her knees. “I think that it’s absolute bullshit.”

“Yes! Thank you!” 

“And furthermore, I think you’re correct in assuming that there was no emergency and he didn’t know how to tell you where he was off to, hell, maybe he even knew that he had to leave prior to the movie even beginning.” 

John slapped his hands down onto the arms of the chair he was sitting on, getting heated, “See! I knew I wasn’t crazy! He was a total jackass for that!”

“But,” Rose softened her expression, signalling she about to drop a truth bomb and John braced himself, “from everything you’ve told me about your friend, I don’t think that he would have left mid movie night if it weren’t important. Nor would he have lied to you about what happened had it not been something where he wasn’t entitled to say.” 

John’s shoulders dropped and he groaned. “What could he possibly not be entitled to tell me? I’m his best friend! It’s not like I haven’t told him things that I probably shouldn’t have told him!”

“I’m sure you have, and I’m sure he’s probably confided the same kind of secrets with you,” Rose gave John a soft smile, “but that doesn’t mean he has to always prioritize that over his loyalty to others. He doesn’t have to tell you everything.”

This is not what John wanted to hear. Of course, she was right, and he knew that, but he didn’t want to admit it. It made him feel silly for being upset. And atop of that it made John feel like he was the one who owed Dave an apology, not the other way round. 

“Doesn’t mean I’m any less mad about him lying or leaving.” 

“You’re totally allowed to be mad about it, John. I would be too! What are we made of if not our emotions towards the things that happen to us? But we have to make sure these emotions don’t wrap their ugly fingers around our minds and keep us from seeing the better things. He’s your best friend, John, and I’m going to give you a piece of advice that I promise will never steer you wrong.”

John raised an eyebrow.

“Let it the fuck go.”

A huff of breath shot out of John’s nose as he laughed. “Is that what all those therapy books say?”

Rose smiled, “Not exactly in those words.”

John let out a defeated sigh and slumped back in his chair. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll let it go.”

“See! You’re already making progress! After this you should go out and buy yourself a coffee to celebrate.”

John scoffed and rubbed his face, “I think if I drink one more cup of coffee I’ll turn into some mutated creature made entirely of the stuff.”

Rose let out a small laugh but concern held her expression, “Still not sleeping well I take it?”

John had definitely not been sleeping well, In fact he had barely slept at all. He had been running on scattered 45 minute naps and a few crashes where he’d burn the entire day away in sleep. It became clear to him after a couple days that the nightmares only came when the moon was out, so any and all actual sleeping had been done during daylight. He still tried every night to get some pleasant shut eye, but in would waltz Dave’s fanged sleep demon and it was all over. 

“I don’t know why it won’t give up. Or why this is even happening to me. I literally just want one good nights’ sleep and for some reason my brain just won’t let me have it.” He angrily brought his hand to the side of his head and shook it like he was cursing at his mind.

“What does Dave think about all of this?”

John rolled his eyes, “He thinks I should get some sleep meds and a therapist.”

“Well, you’ve got the therapist part! But you’ll have to talk to a psychiatrist for the meds aspect.” Rose leaned down and pulled out a pack of gum from the small purse rested at her feet, taking out two pieces and offering one to John. “But I meant what does he think, think? Is he worried about you or anything like that?”

John reached forward and took the piece of gum, unwrapping it and popping it in his mouth. He thought for a second, “I don’t know. Maybe? I haven’t really talked to him about it.”

“Why not?”

“Why haven’t I talked to him about it?” John scoffed, “Because that’d be, like, super weird. I don’t even know how I would go about telling him.”

“I think it would be helpful to open up about it to Dave. Have a good, solid conversation. Maybe it might even help get rid of your dreams.” She put the pack of gum back in her purse and sat up straighter in her chair. “Maybe even the reason for your dreams would come out.”

John scratched the back of his neck and looked at her with doubt, “You think so?”

Rose shrugged, “Maybe. I’m not saying it would help for certain, but it might do something.”

“Something like what?”

Rose laughed, “I don’t know! We therapists don’t have all the answers, y’know, just suggestions.”

John thought for a moment. “I could try but I really don’t think anything good will come of it. He’ll probably just want to move out.” 

She sent him a comforting smile, “It’s up to you, John. One thing's for certain, you wouldn’t have to carry it alone.”

“I’m not carrying it alone, I’ve got you.” John gave her a smirk and she laughed.

“I don’t count, John.”

And with that, the timer on her phone exploded, filling the room with its siren blare as Rose fumbled to turn it off. John stood up and collected his scattered items he had placed about once the room had gone quiet and Rose gave him one last sentiment.

“He matters to you, John. Don’t be afraid to bring him deeper into your life.”

John let the words stick to him as he sent her a ‘goodbye’ nod, and he left the office. He wasn’t afraid of anything when it came to Dave. At least while he was awake.

 

___________________________________________

 

Dave was lounging on the couch watching ‘Some Like it Hot’ when John entered through the door, immediately giving Dave a scolding look.

“Seriously? You left the door unlocked?” John threw the unused keys upon the small table situated by the apartment entrance. “Do you even know how dangerous that is? What if someone tried to rob us?”

Dave smiled and let out a small laugh, “Hello to you, too.”

John rolled his eyes and locked the door behind him, “I’m serious, anyone could have walked through our door!”

Dave shrugged, “Then they’d have to deal with me.”

John narrowed his eyes and shook his head, “Yea, and they’d shoot you the second they see you and you’d be dead.”

“How do you know these robbers would have a gun?” Dave smirked and turned on the couch to face the brunette, “Maybe they’re traditional goons and branding knives or baseball bats.”

“Either way, you’d be fucked. All because you left the door open. Don’t do it again.” John kicked off his shoes and made his way into the kitchen, opening the fridge and frowning at the lack of appetizing options. Dave was supposed to restock it while he was out that day. 

“You know, there was a time in this country where people could leave their doors unlocked! Nobody would bother them. It was a mutual respect among everybody, homes were a sacred place.”

John grabbed a water bottle and closed the fridge door, turning to Dave and looking at him with a face that so clearly said, _you’re a whole dumbass._ “You mean the same time where people would throw their literal shit into the streets and wonder why their water tasted like Cholera?”

“Yes! Exactly! The good old days!” Dave exclaimed with a smile and turned off the TV, walking into the kitchen and taking a seat at the dining room table. 

“Hey, did you happen to notice that our fridge has nothing in it?” John took a seat beside Dave at the small dining room table and crossed his arms over his chest as he, not so subtly, reminded Dave it was his turn to go grocery shopping. 

Dave took the hint and he sucked his teeth, “Yo, my bad. I was busy.”

“Busy doing what?” John gestured to the TV, “Watching Marilyn Monroe?”

“Hey! No one does it like Marilyn! Not even to this day!” Dave instigated, a movie disagreement being much more preferred than a Lazy Dave disagreement. 

John took the bait. “So wrong! Ever hear of Michelle Pfeiffer? Cameron Diaz? How about Reese Witherspoon? Or Winona Ryder?”

“Winona Ryder isn’t even blonde! And I’m so right! Nobody tops Ms. Monroe! She’s simply the best.”

“Yea, sure, If you like the ditzy blonde stereotype and blatant misogyny.”

Dave rolled his eyes so far his eyeballs almost popped out of his head, “Whatever, St. John, her movies are a product of her time. She still went down in history with a power that no man has ever been able to truly reach so can it.” 

John laughed and returned Dave’s eye roll ten-fold, “Of course you would be the ‘it’s a product of its time’ kind of person.”

Dave dropped his jaw a little in joking offense, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”  
“It means what it means!” 

The two of them laughed and John let out a sigh. “So, I guess since you didn’t go to the store, we’re ordering pizza.”

Dave’s face lit up, “Yes! Pizza! All day, baby! Fuckin hit up the hut and order our go-to!”

“I know, I know, we’ve been in this situation a billion times before.” He narrowed his eyes at Dave jokingly as he pulled out his phone. 

“I was busy!” 

John’s face dropped a bit as his thumb hovered over the pizza place’s number, remembering his earlier conversation with Rose. He bit his lip and set the phone down, wanting to clear this out of the way before any call was made. “Hey, Dave, can I talk to you about something for a sec?” 

Dave raised an eyebrow at the sudden shift in mood, “Yea, what’s up?”

“Something sort of serious?” 

“About the pizza?”

John laughed through his nose, “No, dumbass, It’s about my dreams.”

Dave perked up and set his own phone down on the table, focusing on John, “Yea. What about them?”

John opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t really find where to begin. He cleared his throat as he felt his face grow red, dreading the conversation not only because it made him sound crazy, but because it was so outlandish it was embarrassing. 

“So, I guess I should start off by saying that… that nightmares are irrational. And even though, y’know, I know when i’m awake that it’s one hundred percent stupid and unrealistic and- and just overall completely _irrational_ \- when i’m sleeping it feels real. Like i’ve never dreamt it before. Like i’ve got something to fear. Like, uh. Like it’s actually happening, y’know. So it’s nothing... personal.”

Dave blinked. He, honest to god, had no idea how to respond to John’s nervous introduction. Within those words it was confirmed that, yes, John’s dreams were about Dave, and yes, Dave was what he was afraid of. Which was, needless to say, incredibly off putting already. He guessed he already knew both those things, but it’s different when John is actually speaking it. 

“Nothing personal?” Dave frowned and let some worry fade into his expression. “You dream of me?” Jade would probably cattle brand a huge _I fucking told you so_ upon his forehead if she were hearing this. Dave hoped the dreams weren’t as bad as the feeling creeping up his spine. 

“I mean,” John shook his head, “Sort of. Yes and no.” He sounded stupid. He knew that. But if Rose was right and all they needed was to have a good old fashioned heart to heart, then he’d damn well put his heart on the table. “It’s you but it’s not you.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Dave scrunched his brows in confusion, “It’s me but it’s not me?”

John stuttered. He really didn’t know how to explain it without sounding like a mental patient. He bit his lip and picked at the skin around his nails, “You’re not you. Like. You’re you- same body, same voice, same person sitting in front of me right now, but you’re… intimidating. Like, frightening. But it’s sort of… I don’t know… for lack of a better word, alluring? I’m scared, definitely scared, but I don’t- I don’t do anything. Like I’ve got this blind trust in something that… that I really shouldn’t trust.”

John met Dave’s eyes and a frown plastered on his face at the confusion so plainly slapped upon Daves. It made him feel like an idiot. A blubbering, bumbling, pure fucking idiot. He hadn’t even gotten to the actual events of the dream, just the vibe of the dream and he already wanted to shut up and recoil every word that fell out of his mouth. 

“Okay… So the read of the room is general unease.” Dave gave John a nod to encourage him to continue, but really he just wanted John to stop talking. He knew the feeling John was describing. He knew it way too well. And it disturbed him to the bone to think of himself making John feel like that. But now, he needed to hear the rest. 

John brought his hand up to rub the back of his neck, “Yea, well, it gets worse.” He stifled out a laugh to try and lighten the mood a bit, but it just became displaced among the awkwardness. “Do me a favor,” The brunette started, “don’t laugh. I already feel dumb enough as is, and i’d really appreciate it if you don’t make me out to be even more of a fool.” 

Dave tried to give John his warmest half smile even through the tension of his clenched jaw, “Kinda hard to make you out to be _even more_ of fool when you reached your peak a long time ago.”

John smiled and gave Dave’s shoulder a soft punch. “Shut up.”

Their smiles faded and the air fell between them. John kept his eyes on the floor as he began. “So it starts out just you and me. And before you say anything, or even think anything- this is _nothing_ sexual. Not even on the radar. Got it?”

Dave raised his eyebrow and tilted his head to the side a bit, John’s words being humorous to him but nowhere near helping his stomach stop flipping around like a seal. “Got it.”

John let out a small huff, “Okay. So it’s just you and me and we’re like. Really close. And I mean close. No more than an inch apart. My back is to a wall and you’re right in front of me and you’re basically.. holding me against it by my arms. And um.” John paused and scratched his forehead. He wasn’t going to mention the kisses. “We’re just kind of standing there for a bit, and um, my heart is beating out of my chest- just full on pounding, and um. It’s kinda like. You know that. Like,” He scoffed, “You can hear it.”

Dave felt himself become nervous, like he was watching a horror movie and the music was screeching hurriedly to indicate something really bad was about to happen. He had never given any indication to John of his true nature, so how the hell was his mind replicating it so well? Did John know? How would he know? Was this a confrontation? Dave though he was gonna bite the tip of his tongue off if he kept gritting his teeth like this.

“And um, there’s just this feeling of- of vulnerability that I just can’t fucking shake. I’m terrified under your grip but I- I know there's not a damn thing I can do about it. And I think you can sense that because… well- I don’t know if it’s something you’re doing or just my mind doing whatever the fuck, but it’s kinda like. Your touch becomes a calming agent. Like a xanax. And I’m less tense and things kind of become a bit foggy. Not visually but I’m definitely altered y’know. I’m calm but i’m also… submissive? ”

John stopped and studied Dave’s face, not really sure how to confess the rest of the dream. Dave looked at him with listening concern, but even John could see there was something else there. A different kind of intensity. Dave was stiff in his upper body, yet completely still, almost as if he were bracing himself for something. John regretted ever bringing this all up. He was embarrassed enough as is. He stopped talking and leaned back in his chair, running his fingers through his hair. 

“You know what, forget it. Forget I ever said anything, it’s not important.” 

Dave adjusted in his seat and his expression stuttered, He needed to hear the rest. “No, no, continue.” 

“I really don’t want to talk about it, I don’t know why I even brought it up.”

“I mean, you already started, might as well just say the rest.” 

John shook his head. “It’s really not important. I think I’m gonna order that pizza now.” 

John grabbed his phone and stood, starting to walk into the living room but was tugged back by Dave’s hand grabbing a hold of his forearm just a little tighter than needed. He turned around quick at the contact and met Dave’s stare, noting that he was almost as surprised by the action as John was. As soon as they locked eyes, Dave released John’s arm and pulled his hand back as if it wasn’t his own. 

In that moment, those few short seconds where it was just silence, John couldn’t pull his eyes away from Dave’s. No matter how hard he tried, they were stuck. It was like they were being held in place by something else and nothing in him could break them away. His faced dropped a bit, almost in a trance. He felt as though he was waiting for something.

“Tell me the rest.” Dave spoke in a soft voice, almost as if he were soothing John into knowing he could tell him anything, and not bending his will. It felt wrong. He immediately felt guilt run through him for using his manipulation on John, especially as the human’s eyes dilated for a moment and you could see his mind swirling around in his head. It was like a buffering screen as his brain worked to calibrate itself and catch up to the words. 

John blinked and gave a small nod before slowly taking his seat once more. He trusted Dave. He could tell him the rest. 

John took a breath while he tried to recall where he had left off. He took a sip of water as he felt a small aching creep behind his eyes, blinking a couple more times before getting back to his dream. 

“Then you ask me if I’m ‘sure.’ And I say yes. Like we had a whole conversation before all of it about what was going down and you were just giving one final check in. And I was sure. I really was sure. Each time I’m in the dream up to that point, I have no idea what’s going on. Not why we’re like that and definitely not what’s happening. There’s this looming sense of danger and this gut feeling of ‘this is not right’ but I just go along with it. Almost as if it’s my idea.” John laughed, feeling ridiculous as he spoke. “It’s like I arrived at the movies late and I just walked in to a really intense scene, with no idea how anyone got in their spots or what’s about to happen, but I’m sure. Sure i’m gonna watch the rest and let it play out to the end. Let you do what you want.”

Dave didn’t like that last sentence. It rubbed him entirely the wrong way. In more wrong ways than one at that. His stomach churned at the thought. _Let you do what you want_. That could mean anything. What was it that he wanted to do? More specifically, what was it that John’s mind thought he wanted to do?

John bit his lip, wanting to hold back the rest of the dream if only to keep Dave from rolling his eyes. He could already hear the scoff and belly bellowed laugh that would erupt from Dave’s loud mouth once he recounted the grisly end. 

“It’s real terror, Dave.” The words felt regurgitated. “It’s all in a dream but it’s real. It rushes through you, no matter how irrational the playout is.”

Dave narrowed his eyes a bit, the warning from the beginning spilling from the human once more. John was truly afraid, and he thought that Dave would make it nothing more than the butt of a joke. 

“I won’t laugh, John.” He waved his pinky to confirm his promise and gave John a small smile, which took all his energy to conjure from his anxious being. 

“And then,” John exhaled, “You rip your teeth into my fucking throat and kill me.”

_Slam._

Like his body hit the pavement after falling from the sky for miles and splattering in a ink blot diagram of blood and bones and viscera, Dave felt his body run cold. Colder than death itself. His smile dropped from his face into an expression only readable as _‘oh fuck.’_

“Wh-” The blonde stuttered, “What do you mean?”

John swallowed the frog in his throat, not finding comfort at all in Dave’s face, “Exactly what I said.”

Dave felt his breath catch in his throat and he too had to swallow, “You mean like- like a vampire?” 

There were the words. The title of the hour. _Vampire._ It felt bitter on Dave’s tongue. 

John brought his hand to his chin and bit the tip of his thumbnail. “Yea, actually. Exactly like a vampire.”

Dave was silent. He leaned back in his chair and felt he was gonna be sick. He fiddled with his hands, not knowing where to put them at the moment. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t think that John’s dreams would be so on the nose, so in the realm of possibility, even if it felt like it was a million miles off to John. What did this mean? How could John’s subconscious ever even think to veer down that path. Had he made some kind of freudian slip that manifested in John’s brain that he couldn’t remember? Whatever the reason, it was bad. It was all very, very bad.

It stressed Dave out, and he wore that stress on his face and shoulders like a goddamn jacket. John, however, wearing his own stress and staring at the floor, was oblivious as he carried on.

“It wasn’t like how you see it in most vampire movies, either. It wasn’t some clean experience with mild pain, where only like one slow thin stream of blood drips down the person's back as they gasp a bit in uncomfort. No. It’s fucking brutal. I felt blood soaking my chest and my back and down my arm and even in the hair at the bottom of my neck and oh my god, the pain, Dave. I mean, I know it’s a dream, but it felt so real and it was worse than any pain I had ever felt in my entire life. Like someone injected acid into my veins. I almost would rather have jumped in front of a moving bus and became all smashed up underneath it than go through that.”

He lifted his head up to look at Dave who was already very intensely watching him. It struck John to the heart with unease to see how panicked and upset Dave’s body language projected him as. “You okay?”

Dave snapped out of his head and realized his body spoke of his fear just as loudly as any voice could, and he readjusted in his seat, claiming back his nonchalance- however forced it may be.

“Yea, it’s just. That’s a gross thought. Makin me all queasy over here.”

“Being all smushed underneath a bus?”

“No- well, yea that too- but I mean… the thought of like. Eating you. Really spoils pizza night.”

John laughed and felt some weight leave his shoulders. “Like I said, it’s nothing personal. Probably just my mind being crazy.” 

“I dunno, sounds pretty personal to me.”

“Ha, if it were personal then i’d probably know why i’m having these dreams, but I don’t. So it’s mostly just subconscious gibberish to me. I’m starting to think of it as a baby that’s coughing and sputtering and you get all afraid thinking that it’s choking but then it smiles at you and you realize it’s just making spit bubbles.” 

Dave let a smile spread across his face and they sat for a for few seconds in silence. Something else pulled at John’s head.

“The thing, I think, that bothers me the most about it isn’t even the whole vampire thing and the bite, It’s the fact that even through all my struggling and screaming and crying, you just didn’t care. You kept going. Not only that, but with every kick and push and evey thrash I could possibly manage, you countered it and stopped it dead in its tracks. You kept your hand over my mouth and just dug deeper and deeper into my throat. All I could do against you was pray, and you just. Didn’t care.” 

John’s words shot through Dave like a hot knife in the chest.

“So what do you think… about all that?” John bit his lip and his eyes made Dave feel the heaviest he’s ever felt. 

He raised his eyebrows, “What do I think?” His mouth hung open as he tried to find the right words to match what he felt. He really had no idea how to be serious about this. It shook him down to the marrow and he didn’t think he even knew how to respond in the slightest. “I dunno. I try not to judge, y’know, but overall I think it’s pretty kinky.”

John punched his arm, “I’m serious! I want your actual input. Not your jokes.”

Dave sighed and straightened his posture, running his hand through his hair as he thought. John felt as though he could bite off every nail on all his fingers. His heartbeat quickened with anxiety and it only distracted Dave more. Dave could sense the veiled fear underneath John’s composure, and it made him think that if his heart could beat, it probably would have stopped the second John said the word _vampire_.

“Honestly, I have no idea.”

The words hit John in the most unpleasant way possible. “You have no idea? How could you have no idea? You’ve got to have some kind of feeling toward it!”

Dave grit his teeth and gave his head a small shake, “I don’t know what you want me to say, John. I do have feelings toward it. But I-” He stopped. The words stayed on the tip of his tongue and John looked about ready to reach forward and yank them out. He rubbed his hand over his mouth and scooted his chair closer to John’s, giving him one of the few serious looks he ever let fall on his face. “Did I do something wrong?” 

John immediately scrunched his face in apprehension of the question. “No! No, you didn’t do anything wrong! Like I said, It’s nothing personal! I have no idea why my mind chose you or that scenario!”

Dave let his eyes fall to the floor for a moment before looking back up at the bright blue eyes in front of him. He felt bad. Actually, he felt worse than bad. Way, way, way worse. If his body worked as it did when he was alive, Dave was sure this scene would have made him vomit. He inhaled and gave a small shrug, “I mean, I don’t feel great about it. But it’s not even the content of the dream. It’s just. You being afraid of me. It kind of makes me feel… sick? I can handle just about anything else, whether it’s anger and heartache or annoyance and headache, but fear?” He leaned back in his seat, “That’s something else entirely.”

John shook his head and countered Dave’s movement by leaning forward in his own chair, “But i’m not afraid of you! It’s just my subconscious manifesting something in some weird ass way! The only way I’d ever be afraid of you would be if you really were what my dream made you out to be, but you’re not! You’re not a vampire! You’re not a killer! You’re just you, Dave, human and insignificant as the rest of us. And no matter how hard you try, you’re not that scary.”

John tried to meet Dave’s eyes that locked onto his hands resting in his lap. He clearly was trying to lighten the tone of the conversation with that last bit, giving Dave a warm smile and laughing through his words, but it only hardened the pit in Dave’s stomach even more. His entire body ached as if he were back on church grounds and his mind was just as rampant. 

_You have no idea._ He wanted to say. _You have no clue as to how afraid you would be. I am the demon from your nightmares, in every sense._

Dave finally lifted his eyes to meet John’s and sent him his best and brightest smile, “I could be scary.”

John scoffed, “Yea, in your dreams.”

“No, in _your_ dreams.”

John let a loud laugh escape from him before softening his face. He knew there was more behind Dave’s eyes. Never did anything make Dave have to search around to conjure up his thoughts. He always had something to say about anything, and something that could render him silent, even for a second, was something that hit him in a much, much different way. But they had been talking for awhile, and he thought it be better left to another day. “We good?”

Dave’s mind beat at his entire being but he strained a half smile, “We’re good.”

John cleared his throat and slapped his hand on the table, trying to lasso the mood back into something not so oppressingly dreary, “How’s about that pizza?”

Dave forced a small laugh and gave John a quick half nod. The brunette grabbed his phone and walked into the living room to complete the order that Dave had earlier interrupted. As John made the call, Dave sat and thought. He felt like he had just been struck by lightning and was now simmering in his seat, his body charred black and smoking like a cartoon character. He had no idea what to do with this new information. But he definitely knew someone who might. 

He pulled out his own phone and clicked on the messages app, pressing on one of the two conversations he had going.

_I need to talk to you. ASAP._

The message sent and almost immediately the typing bubble popped up in the corner of the screen. 

_‘About what?’_

Dave tapped away on the keyboard. 

_John told me about his dreams. Not good, Jade. Really need to talk to you._

He waited a moment as the bubble danced in the corner of his screen, disappearing and reappearing with Jade’s typing. John was finishing the call, giving their address and apartment floor and door number, when his phone finally vibrated with her message.

_‘Where are you? Is he okay? What did you do?’_

Dave glared at the screen for a second before hastily typing his response. 

_Yes, he’s fucking okay! I didn’t do anything, we just talked. We’re at the apartment waiting on a fuckin pizza to arrive. Could I come over tonight? After John goes to sleep?_

He waited a few more seconds.

_‘Yes. Call when you’re on your way.’_

Dave let out a small breath as John ended his call.

“Alright, they said they shouldn’t be more than 45 minutes so now all we have to do is wait.” John took his seat back at the table and set down his phone. He eyed Dave and let a smile creep on to his face.

“If you ever were turned into a vampire, you’d totally tell me, right?”

Dave huffed a small laugh and nodded, even though he was about to lie through his teeth. “You’d be the first to know.”

John beamed, “Good. Because I’d be super offended if I wasn’t.”

“I’m sure you would be, but you’d probably be shaking in your boots with a cross over your chest if that ever did happen.” The thought had Dave’s chest in knots.

“I would not! In fact, that’d probably be the coolest thing ever! Being best friends with a vampire! You could turn into a bat at parties and everyone would lose their mind.”

“Pfft. Yea, I’d go straight to Hollywood with that trick.”

“Hell yea you would!”

They laughed and John felt normal again, all anxiety of the moment slipping off his shoulders. Dave’s face dropped a bit as he thought of one last thing to say, more or less something he hoped John would remember if the day ever came where all would come spilling out.

“Hey, John.”

John looked up to meet Dave’s face and his eyes flickered as he saw the emotion in the other. “Hm?”

“You know that,” Dave began, itching his eyebrow, “even if I was some hell creature… I’d never hurt you.”

John rolled his eyes and laughed, “I thought you were gonna say something serious.”

Dave’s expression remained unwavered, “I am being serious , John.” His face was gentle and full of a tenderness that John hadn’t ever seen before on Dave. “I’d never hurt you.”

Johns’ lip tugged into a half smile and he gave a small nod. He didn’t really know what to say to that. The words felt unusual coming from the blonde. Genuine and real, no doubt, but odd overall. Even then, however, it made John feel warm and safe. A feeling that could overpower any kind of fear any dream ever threw at him. 

They looked at each other for a few moments before John cleared his throat, needing to break the tension, “I’m gonna go take a shower and change for the night.”

Dave gave him a nod as the brunette stood and walked to their shared room. Dave sat at the table, hearing the shower curtain shriek against the metal bar that held it up as it was opened and the soft shrill of the shower being turned on. He sat silently, thinking and tracing the outline of his phone screen before a voice whispered raspily into his ear from behind him.

_“I call bullshit.”_

Dave shot up out of his seat, almost knocking the chair to the ground as he spun on his heels to see who had spoken. He was met with nothing but the blue wall that spilled in from the kitchen and the air between him and it. He furrowed his brows wondering if he had imagined it before he felt a pair of eyes peering into his back. He turned once more and his blood ran cold as he was met with a familiar figure wearing an expression made of ice.

Dave staggered back into the kitchen, gasping as his breath caught in his throat and he stared in horror as he was met with the ghost of the boy he left behind over seventy years ago. KK stood before him, soaked in blood as wet and red as the day he was killed, his neck practically shredded and his left arm limp beside him. Blood dripped from the tips of his fingers and disappeared into nothing before it could hit the ground. His skin was completely void of color, his veins showing bright blue through his flesh, and his eyes were gray and sheer, no pupils within them. 

Dave was frozen to the spot, unable to wrench his eyes away from the spirit. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. It was like everything in the world had stopped. 

KK tilted his head ever so slightly to the side and let a small, unsettling smile grace his face. Before Dave could even take the smile in, a burning sensation ignited in his lungs and he grabbed his chest, digging his nails into his skin. It melted through his flesh, bubbling like acid and searing into his hand like a cauterizer. Dave ripped his hand from his chest and tried desperately to mute his screams as the pain erupted from his spine and shot all over his body, forcing Dave to his knees. He clawed at his chest and back and stomach, before the fire began to creep up and make it’s home in his throat. It was suffocating and intense, blood pooled in his mouth and dripped down his chin as he coughed, the pain scratching his esophagus with each sputter and moving slowly up. His eyes, which had been balling with tears, started to blot with red and blood streamed down his face from his tear ducts. His shirt clung to him with a mix of sweat and blood and Dave grabbed a hold of his hair as his brain felt like it was starting to rot while he was alive, melting within his skull and boiling behind his eyes. He could almost feel KK’s invisible hands digging through his body and slicing through each organ and tissue layer layer like a butcher.

Dave felt something solid scrape against the back of his teeth and ache against them like a drill as he gagged, his tongue writhing as holes were being scorched through it. He doubled over and let his jaw hang as he dug around his mouth, grabbing a hold of the object as it singed the pads of his fingers, and slowly pulled it out. It was long, and it blistered and scraped the roof of his mouth with each centimeter he dragged it out further. With one final bloody gurgle, Dave ripped the item from his being and threw it on the floor in front of him. And just like that, the pain was over.

His breath rushed back into him and his senses slowly faded back into functionality. His wounds were already closing as he gulped in the air, falling onto his back and lying on the floor trying to regain himself. He fearfully shot his eyes around the room, hoping to land on KK and beg for his mercy, beg him not to touch John, but he was nowhere to be seen. 

After a few more shaky breaths and a couple of blinks, he was back to normal. The sound of the shower still rang in the background as John carried on undisturbed, unaware of the horrific scene that had just played out in the kitchen. Dave’s mind raced around his head, almost not believing what had just happened. He flipped onto his stomach and brought himself up onto his elbows and then onto his knees. He leaned against the low cabinets of the island and tried to sort out his thoughts. 

His mind, however, was pulled back to the object that had so corroded his body, and he dropped his eyes to the floor, locking in on the beaded necklace laying in a small pool of blood. His frowned as he reached out to pick it up, the sizzling and charring of his fingertips being like small pokes to him after the ordeal a few moments ago.

Dangling in his hand, dripping with his blood, was a black beaded rosary. The cross hung heavy in the center, the small crucified mold of Christ seeming to smile at the vampires corrupted being. A fallen child of his, no better than the pitch black souls screaming eternally in hellfire.

This was going to be a long, long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! Things are really starting to get interesting! Poor Dave, i'm sorry for shoving a rosary down your throat but it made for a good ending.
> 
> Anyways, I wonder what will happen next! Tune in next week to find out!


	5. Small Circle Bruises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so first of all, i need y'all to know that i wrote the entire ending after doing like 4 shots of smirnoff and chugging half a bottle of sangria, so. If at any point ur like mmm this is kinda off, its cuz i was very fucked up and am wayyyy too lazy to rewrite.
> 
> Second, if some bits seem a little OOC, then i want you to know that yea. I know. I see. I'm the bitch writing this, you don't think i'm aware? I never said I was GOOD at writing, ok. 
> 
> And lastly, this chapter is 30 pages total on a google doc. That's not important but i just really wanted you all to know that. I'm writing a whole ass book and its fuckin homestuck.
> 
> God, fuck me.

As soon as Dave stumbled out of the cemetery, scorching his hand on the gate just as he did as he entered, the familiar weakness the experience always brought him took ahold of his body and he slumped to the ground. 

It was a cruel joke, he thought. In the very place he was meant to be at rest, the place where he owned his own headstone, the place where he had gathered with his family for mass and for other town passings’, almost killed him to walk upon. For just a couple minutes. He felt like God was unrooting the souls beneath the dirt to grab ahold of his ankles as and drag him down into the soil where he should be.. 

He stayed put for awhile, letting his body semi recover, which really didn’t take all that long, but still he sat. He felt himself settle, his head clearing of the thick black fog and his veins simmered back down beneath his skin. His lungs got back into a normal breathing rhythm as he swallowed the last bout of blood in his throat. He opened and closed his hand into a fist, his limbs slowly feeling useable again, and he leaned his head back against the stone wall that outlined the area. 

“Why do I do this to myself?” He whispered to the air, laughing. He bet God wasn’t too happy with that. Dave laughing. But what else could he do? He couldn’t cry. He hadn’t cried in years. Not intentionally. Not out of sadness. Out of pain, sure, but any tears that claimed any sorrow had long since dried in his eyes. He wasn’t sad anymore. He couldn’t be. What was everlasting life if you spent it constantly in tears?

Dave couldn’t really put a word to how he felt. He could almost describe it as numb, but he wasn’t. He guessed he just felt like an old man. A really old man. His life could only be recounted in stories. His name only remembered in stone. It was both the feeling of being old, and being dead. He guessed that’s where the numbness conflict came from. The death. He was dead. Dead, dead, dead. Sometimes he still couldn’t believe it. He could never be the living, breathing, blushing person he was before he bled out. Dave returned, the same world, the same people, same clothes, and same face, but he was new. Everything was new, even while it was all the same. And as time passed, things only changed more and more, leaving him further and further behind. 

He felt ignored by the newness of the world. Brand new things came around within time that baffled him. He was there for the camera, the telegraph and telephone, the lightbulb and the car, and now he was trying to get used to the television craze gripping America. 

It was fascinating, how the times had changed. He felt most of it was all over his head, and sometimes he was lost as the youth of the day would talk to him as if he was up to date and knew everything they did. It was a bitch having an old soul with the face of a twenty year old. And he tried, He really tried his damndest to wrap his brain around the new technology that kept popping up, but everytime he thought that he finally got a hang of something, a brand new thing that was even harder to understand would be invented.

Not only the technology, but the culture had changed, and so, so fast. Clothing was insanely different, so was music, and food, and the language people spoke. There were jobs in the world that wouldn’t have ever been dreamed of when he was alive, and new ones popped up every single day. It was all beyond him, but he tried. Eventually things became easier, but never any less confusing. It sometimes made Dave feel nauseous thinking what the future would hold, when the day would come where something would just be too much for his simple, stupid, old man brain to figure out. 

But he assumed that there were things that he knew that others didn’t. Not the youth, and not the elderly. His own little special box of knowledge that nobody could touch. Nobody could open. Nobody could switch on a light or spin up a number or pretend like it was just ‘so easy.’ Dave felt like he was in between two worlds, not really knowing which he truly belonged to. 

He lived in a human world, with a human face and a human body, but was something more. He needed different things. Got hurt by different things. _Was_ a different thing. 

And he was the only person in the entire world who knew that. Who had ever known that. It was the loneliest thing. Sometimes he thought to tell the friends he made over time, but he knew it would never end well. He knew exactly what their reaction would be, mostly because he had been there. He knew what it was like to discover this new being, and it was all in all, terrifying. 

He let out a breath as he was pulled back to present day.

December 3rd, 1956. 

Dave hated the date. 

He stood in his spot and sighed before starting slowly down the road. It was a well hidden cemetery, standing much smaller than remembered on the same isolated dirt road. It was the only area in the world he felt had stayed the same since he died. Nothing had been built around it, nor had anything been destroyed. It was like a fossil. His own little frozen moment in time. He could almost pretend that nothing else in the world had changed when he was there. It was still the same day when he was seven years old and his second eldest brother dragged him out there and taunted him saying he was going to bury him alive. 

That day had scared Dave to the bone when he was young, made him bolt home in tears and hide from his brother who was laughing and running behind him. But now it only made him smile. What he would give to actually be buried there now.

Dave had only been gone for a couple of hours, KK would probably still be at his job so he could take his time on the walk home. He honestly didn’t mind the trip, but it would probably be better if he wasn’t craving so terribly. That was the part he hated the most about visiting his family, the after. The moments where his mind reeled with the want of something he wish he could never think of again.

It was dark out, the moon hung in the corner of the night, backlighting the trees that lined the road twisting to the sky like witches fingers. The wind came in waves, sometimes heavy blasts of freezing air, sometimes soft whispers of a gentle cold. It was all the same to Dave. The road crunched under each step he took forward, and he slightly teetered in his walk. He took deep breaths to try and get the swirling thoughts in his mind to nestle down, but that never really worked. He thought of them like bats flying around and around a dark cave, he could try to duck them and shine his flashlight on them but he sure as hell couldn’t ignore them.

_Pretty night, huh?_

Dave stopped in his tracks, almost turning to look where the voice came from before he realized it was inside his head. He sighed and rolled his eyes, resuming his walk. He hated this motherfucker. 

“Was wondering when you’d rear your ugly head.” Dave shoved his hands in his pant pockets since his jacket was already stuffed with KK’s book. 

_Might want to use your inside voice or someone might hear you._

“It’s nighttime and nobody walks on this road.”

_I’m just trying to keep you from the funny farm._

“Yea, I’d like to see someone try to send me away.” 

_Oooh, down boy._

A slight growl came from the back of Dave’s throat as he wondered why of all the things vampirism cursed him with, why it had to put a sniveling little parasite in his brain as well.

_It’s very gothic._

“What’s very gothic?”

_This whole scene. The trees. The cemetery. The lonely vampire. The moon peering from above. It’s right out of a horror novel._

“My entire life is right out of a horror novel, especially with you here.”

_Ouch. That hurts._

“Could you just leave me alone? Please?”

It was unlikely that the voice would. It rarely did. When it wanted something it would compose an entire symphony trying to get it. Dave remembered the first time he woke up a vampire, leaning against the stone wall behind the pub, covered in his own dried blood and his clothes stuck to his skin like glue. He remembered the voice that chimed in his head, a sing-song tease, a greeting. He had tried so hard at first to find where the voice was coming from, who was talking to him, and then when he could not find the source, how he tried so hard to run from it. He ran and ran and ran farther than he ever had before, fearing a demon may be chasing him, the same unholy creature that ripped into his body just a few hours earlier. It laughed and laughed at him, calling him dense and blind, taunting him and making him brutally aware of a certain hunger bubbling up alongside his fear.

At first, he thought he was going mad. He was terrified. Every word the voice sang made him want to stick his head into a fire and burn the evil out. But now, it was more or less just a nuisance. Like a stray dog that comes to your side begging for scraps, or door to door salesmen. 

_It’s been over a century and you still don’t like me. I’m starting to think you never will._

“It took you this long to figure that out?”

_You’re a hard man to break, Dave._

“No, I’m pretty fuckin easy to break. Like a wet piece of paper. Pretty much the flimsiest thing in the world. Maybe, and i’m just spitballing, but maybe you’re not trying hard enough.”

_You always have an answer for everything._

“That’s what a conversation is isn’t it?”

Dave reached the end of the cemetery road and turned left onto the crossing street. He continued down the way, walking in the middle of the street kicking his feet forward as if passing a pebble down the road. He smiled a bit to himself, thinking of how he and his brothers would kick rocks as they chased each other around corners and down to the little town center. It was fun until one of them would get frustrated with the teasing and pick up the rocks and throw them at the others, igniting a shower of vengeance and small circle bruises. Dave may or may not have received most of said bruises. 

The trip home from his visits always flung him back through his memories. From the days where his brothers and him would race around the forests scouring for kindling and dried leaves for the fire, the most heated and competitive game of the century, to the days where they would try to scare each other at night by hiding beneath the others bed and pounding against the support beams to wake them up. 

He remembered the bedtime tales his third oldest brother would tell him before they’d go to sleep about demons that watched you from the shadows, that would get real close to your face once you were dreaming and if you opened your eyes before the sun came out it would pluck them from your skull and devour them, leaving you eyeless and in the dark forever. Or the stories of a sorceress who lived in an old burning tree that never turned to ash in the middle of the blackest bed of earth, who would enchant her tree to look like the healthiest for harvest in an entire forest and as soon as an axe was stuck into the bark, the person wielding it would be consumed in her fire and would burn forever, keeping the flame alive with their undying misery. 

The one that he remembered the most, however, was the one of the little girl who went out one night to follow her cat which had awoken her from her sleep to slink away through her window. She followed the cat through the glass and deeper and deeper into the woods behind her home. It was cold out and she was only dressed in her nightgown and socks. She shivered and called to her kitty to come home so they could go back to sleep, that mother and father wouldn’t like her going out late. The cat meowed and continued forward through the trees until it disappeared in the shadows. She looked and looked and looked for it, calling out to see where it had gone, following shadows after shadows of where it could be until she found herself completely lost. She sat in the mud and started to cry before a small purr and a pressure brushed against her back. The little girl turned around smiling that her kitty had come back, but instead was met with the outline of a very thin, tall man. She fell back, screaming and driving her hands into the ground, but the man was gone the next time blinked. She stayed where she was and started crying again, this time for her mother and father, desperate for them to find her and take her home. A deep and raspy voice whispered softly right up against her ear then, “This is your home now.” She shot to her feet and started to run, run anywhere just to get away. As she ran, she hoped she was going in the direction of home but she was just going farther and farther into the night. 

In the morning when her parents awoke, they found that the little girl was in her bed, in the same nightgown and socks she went to sleep in, her kitty sleeping soundly beside her. He remembered asking his brother how she got back home if she was running in the opposite direction, to which he just smiled and said “She didn’t.” 

The story confused him, but it definitely managed to send shivers down his spine. He thought of the girl that night, where she was, how she ended up, who the man she saw was and where her cat had gone. It made him shake thinking how she felt, so lost in the dark, being chased by something unknown, never being able to go home and wondering why nobody was looking for you, not knowing it was because someone or something had already taken your place.

But now, Dave knew exactly how she had felt. He had also run through the darkness, been chased by something too vile to understand, been lost among nothingness and fear. He wished he could talk to his older brother and tell him that his story was true, just in a different way.

Dave past a few scattered buildings and noted them as the first signs of life. He was getting closer to the town, and in turn the residences. It was still a very humble place, not much bigger than it was back in the day. He was thankful for that. He was happy his town didn’t sprout into some big city like New York or Hollywood. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to stick around if it had. Maybe it would one day, but he doubted it. It was a speck on the map full of a bunch of stupid hicks passing time by throwing dog bones and pretending like they knew everything. Not exactly the desired cityscape area. 

But still, it wasn’t untouched by time and definitely had hints of the incoming future budding within it. It was a few stops of unsettling to Dave, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. The world was supposed to advance and change, he knew that, but sometimes he wished it would just slow down a bit. Or at least, stay away for awhile.

A distant hum glided down the street and towards Dave, headlights peeking out through the dark before filling the road in front of it with light. Dave sidestepped till he was on the lining of the street and watched in vague awe as the car hurled passed him, the wind warping to it with a whoosh. 

_Don’t tell me you’re a car lover now._

“What’s wrong with that?”

_It’s unnatural, humans have feet for a reason._

Dave laughed, “Unnatural, huh? I’d love to hear your definition of natural.”

_Everything that already exists in the world. The trees. The sun and sky. Light and dark. Life and death._

“Even the amish have higher standards than you.”

_You talk to me like my mind isn’t also yours._

Dave scoffed. He had heard that spiel before and honestly still couldn’t really believe it. The thing inside his head was nothing of him. It was created in his death, a leech on his sanity and something far, far, far away from anything he’d ever think or feel.

A heartbeat sounded in the far off and Dave closed his mouth, adjusting himself inside his jacket.

_‘Because I know my mind isn’t yours.”_

_Back to talking to me inside your head, huh? What happened to Mr. ‘I’d like to see them try to send me away.’_

_‘Doesn’t mean I want anybody hearing me talk to the fuckin wind.’_

_It’s just one person. They sound alone._

_‘Please shut up’_

_You’re practically dragging your feet, Dave._

Dave drew his eyes to the ground as said person came into view. It was a girl in her late teens/early twenties. She was walking on the opposite side of the street, her hands shuffling inside her pockets and her scarf pulled up to her ears. Dave could feel her eyes on him, weary eyes that he knew only a girl alone at night can own. He adjusted his clothing tighter around him and kept his gaze ahead, trying his best not to focus on the human so close to him.

But he couldn’t help but notice that she smelled faintly like cinnamon and biscuit dough, the smell much more saturated in her clothing. He wished he could taste those things. He could probably head to the nearest bakery and find an abundance of either, but it wouldn’t matter. It would just be a texture on his taste buds, nothing more. The taste he missed the most, he thought, was the taste of an apple. He used to eat one everyday with his breakfast and one everyday for lunch. It was such a simple snack, but it was something he enjoyed like nothing else. He didn’t remember what they tasted like. He tried so hard to think, was it sweet? Tart? Maybe even savory? But he couldn’t pin the right word to it. It was just gone from his mind. 

Nowadays there was plenty of variations of apples. There was apple pie and apple tarts, apple donuts and apple sauce, apple crisps and apple candies. It was just an endless array of delicious foods that he was sure his human self would have drooled over. It kind of made him sad. He was born to a time without much culinary excitements. He wondered what artificial flavoring tasted like. Root beer candies and rocky road ice cream. McDonalds and Kelloggs. Nachos and Pizza. It was just endless miseries when it came to all the foods he’ll never get to taste. 

The girl grew smaller and smaller down the street till she completely disappeared from sight. He felt a small ache inside his chest and could almost hear the frustrated groan of his brain roomate. 

_You keep letting these perfect moments pass you by._

_‘Shut up.’_

_Must we go through this every time?_

_‘Is there like a switch somewhere that I can flip and get you to shut the fuck up. Asking for a friend.’_

The night grew colder and colder with each step Dave took. He passed more and more buildings and soon he was back within the town. It was full- well, as full as a small town in the late evening would be, with people and families cruising around. Holding eachothers hands, children gushing of an incoming blizzard, adults worrying about politics, the same damn thing as every other day in every other winter. Each storefront had bright Christmas wishes hanging in their windows and little pine trees decorated in 10 cent ornaments by their entrances. It was a sweet sentiment but Dave wasn’t really one for the holidays. 

He continued walking, tuning out the voice in his head that was more of less like a drooling dog at this point, yipping on and on without end. He turned and twisted, left and right through the streets and cul de sacs and cross-throughs until he reached the neighborhood he had come from. He continued down the street, his eyes still on the ground, about two doors down from the house KK owned, when the smell of Pall Mall’s burned his nose. He scrunched his eyebrows and looked up, finding KK sitting on the front porch, wrapped in a heavy blanket, taking a long drag from the cig. 

Dave sighed. He was home early. 

KK’s eyes met Dave’s and he smiled, moving himself a bit to the side so Dave could have a seat next to him. As he approached, the voice knocked on his skull ferociously. Something about the moment filled him with a great unease that he couldn’t shake despite his efforts.

“Where’d you run off to?” KK flicked the end of the cigarette between his fingers with his thumb and gave Dave an inquisitive look. 

“Just went for a walk. Needed some fresh air.” Dave lowered down into the space next to KK and twitched his nose as the first snowflake of the night landed upon it. 

“For over four hours?” 

Dave looked at KK sideways, being taken completely off guard in his lie. “Huh? When did you get off work?” 

“I never started.” Another flick. “As soon as I got to work the boss was shoving everyone else out, said he had a family emergency and the store would be closed for the rest of the evening. I came back after that but you were gone.” KK turned himself so he was leaning his back against the porch banister and was resting his legs upon the step in front of him. He stayed quiet as he got out his pack of Pall’s and offered Dave one. “So where you been?”

Dave sighed and turned himself to reflect KK’s position opposite to him. He plucked one cigarette out of the little box and held out his hand for a lighter. KK reached into his coat pocket beneath the quilt around him and handed Dave the little zippo lighter he always carried with him, Dave stuck the cig in his mouth and lit the end. He took a drag and blew out a cloud of smoke enhanced by the cold. “I needed a lot of fresh air.”

KK scoffed and Dave smiled at him, hoping it would stifle the impending upset KK was about to have.

“Seriously, where’d you go? Don’t tell me to the post office either because its a twenty minute walk tops.” KK had already inhaled half the cigarette by the time Dave took his second drag. He was definitely more of a smoker than the blonde. 

Dave kept his eyes on the concrete and let the silence answer for him. He didn’t have a good alibi. He couldn’t lie well, and even if he could, KK is a hard guy to fool. Sure, being a supernatural being is pretty easy to hide since human logic and common sense rule it out by a million miles, but anything that is within possibility? KK will have you dead to rights. 

“Okay, fine. Don’t tell me. I don’t care.” KK snipped and Dave was surprised he got off that easy. The curly headed brunette ran his eyes over Dave and gave a slight grimace. “You look like hell.”

Dave knew he did. He knew exactly what he looked like. He looked like a corpse, and right now he about felt like one too.

The voice reared it’s head through Dave’s tuning. 

_He’s worried about you._

Dave huffed and cleared his throat. “Thanks.” 

KK rolled his eyes and took another painfully long smoke. “Seriously?” 

Dave kept his eyes on his hands for a moment before sending a half smile up to KK. “I went to the post office and took a couple detours. Got lost. Had to find my way back.”

_Why don’t you tell him the truth?_

Dave’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. 

_‘The truth?’_

“Alright, whatever. Let’s stick with that story.” KK gave Dave a dismissive look and finished his cigarette, putting it out on the concrete of the porch and standing up. “You don’t have to tell me shit.” He gruffed as he walked inside. 

Dave immediately felt a twang of guilt. He was no stranger to lying, but to do so so obviously felt like betrayal. Maybe it was. Nothing he could do about it now. He hadn’t expected KK to be there and didn’t think to come up with an excuse for where he was. It’s not his fault he’s not quick on his feet when put on the spot, or that he couldn’t tell KK the truth. 

_Yes, Dave. The truth._

_‘I don’t understand what you mean.’_

Dave could smell the start of coffee brewing inside and the spice candle KK always lit in the evening. He took a final hit of his cig and put his out in the same fashion as KK, even though it was only half finished.

_You never understand what I mean._

_‘So enlighten me.’_

And then a funny thing happened as he walked through the door. It was silent. No reply. He paused mid-way through the frame and gave his head a little shake, wondering if somehow he hadn’t been heard, but still, nothing. He continued on and the door slammed behind him. 

He slipped off his shoes and flung his coat over the stairwell banister near the door, KK’s book still buried in his pocket, turning to the left and making his way to the kitchen. He found KK leaning against the countertop with his arms crossed, completely ignoring Dave’s entrance. 

“You’re really gonna be mad at me over this?” 

He could hear KK’s frustrated breath scrape his throat, but his lips remained closed. 

“It’s not a big deal.” 

At that KK’s eyes shot up to meet Dave’s, holding his stare for a few seconds before turning to have his back to the blonde, pretending to mess with the coffee pot. 

And suddenly, like a tsunami had crashed over him, everything became clear. KK’s heartbeat, the rush of his blood, his breathing and the brushing of his clothing against his skin, his feet shuffling on the floor, the clicking of his nails on the metal of the coffee pot, the grinding of his teeth in his mouth- everything spilled into Dave’s ears all too loud. 

It made his head pound and he closed his eyes for a moment and brought his hand up to his temple. He wanted to run out the front door and gulp in the outside air. It felt like too much. He took a deep breath and tried to steady himself, but it just got more and more amplified. He opened his eyes and shoved his hands in his pocket.

_‘Make this stop.’_

No response. 

_‘Please, not tonight.’_

Still silence. 

He took in another breath, sharper than before, and a pain rooted his chest. He cringed at the feeling, hating how fast this was all enveloping him. The silence was no coincidence, he was sure. 

_‘Please.’_

Nothing.

KK spun around, a face full of an impending argument that flickered with concern seeing the zombie before him, but he found his ground and his tongue spat fire at the blonde. “What could be so bad that you don’t want to tell me? I mean, I helped you write your letter home because you’re too ditzy to figure out what to say to your folks, and then you just disappear for four fucking hours and come back looking like you wrestled the devil in hell itself and repay my help by lying straight to my face? Like I’m stupid?”

“You’re not-” Dave tried to interject but KK cut into his words sharply.

“And furthermore!” KK threw his hands up in the air, and Dave almost flinched at the crack of his wrists echoing in his head. “I don’t really care where you were, or what you did, or who you were with, I’m just worried about you because you’re my friend and when a friend looks like they’re about to die on my porch, I wanna know what’s wrong! But you can’t even see that, you just think I’m trying to get into your business!”

“That’s not-”

“I mean, really, you didn’t even tell me you were going anywhere except for the post office! So it’s not like me asking you was some out-of-the-blue time for interrogation! I didn’t even-”

Dave wanted him to stop- needed him to stop. Each word shot itself through his skull and left a heavy ache behind his eyes. His muscles felt tight, like he was going to constrict on himself any second if he didn’t scream or punch something or rip out the energy that KK was jamming into him. Dave clenched his fist until he was knuckle-white and his nails dug into his palm until he bled. KK’s words were starting to drown and muffle in a constant stream of sound, almost as if Dave’s head was deep under water, and his entire being began to falter. 

He felt like he was back at the cemetery, his entire body falling beneath him at random. His bones fell first, then his muscle, then his blood. God, the thought, the smell, the want boiled in his chest, burning him hotter and hotter with each second he stood. It creeped it’s way into the front of his mind as KK wildly gesticulated and paced nearer and nearer. Usually when they got into a tiff, Dave would just wait until the other wasted his breath, but waiting felt like a curse. A punishment. The pain seeping into his skin just for wearing it and drilling into his hands just for keeping them still, he felt like time was a thick curdled mud. 

KK stopped talking as Dave’s face sunk lazily, like he was about to fall asleep. Rage bubbled to the very top of him and he grew more red than he had been in awhile. “Are you seriously fucking ignoring me?” 

Dave stayed quiet, not even registering the comment. He felt so, so, so heavy.

_‘Please don’t fucking do this.’_

Even inside his mind it was a task to think, to talk. He couldn’t focus. KK’s heart grew louder and faster and more and more furious and Dave closed his eyes. He felt like he was going to faint. KK kept speaking, but Dave couldn’t hear him or understand what he was saying. It was just noise. Incoherent and incomplete. It was coming closer and closer to him, it’s bite stringing thinner and concern could almost be made out.

The voice inside him was edging him closer and closer, forcing him into a corner until he blew up. He knew it. He had been here before. He knew what would happen if he didn’t leave. But it was clever in where it had him disconnected all over, his mind was far from his body, his body far from his voice, his voice far from his movements, and his movements far from his control. His whole body felt like a pool of glue, and he was just some stupid insect dumb enough to get caught in it. 

_‘Stop.’ ___

__Dave felt a hand on his shoulder, it’s warmth dripped through his body and suddenly the entire world stopped. Like the interruption of a metronome in a empty room. Complete and heavy silence, suffocating and way, too, close._ _

__And then words, clearer than anything, “Are you okay?”_ _

__And that was it._ _

_________ _

_Change of plans. I need you to come here. NOW. It’s an EMERGENCY_

Dave hit the send button so feverishly he had to double check he didn’t crack his phone once he put it down. He could hear John shuffling around in the bedroom changing his clothes and he went to the trash can just to triple make sure all the blood soaked paper towels were buried at the bottom. 

“ _Fuck, fuck, fuck._ ” He ran a hand through his hair and nervously rung the end of his shirt that he changed. His hands shook a little bit, his body still a bit unsteady from the rosary. He had buried the shirt he coughed up the blood onto in his clothes hamper just as he did the paper towels in the trashcan. Everything had been cleaned up, no evidence of what just happened remained except for the rosary he stuck in their junk drawer and the itch of an incoming craving. This was definitely not how he wanted pizza night to go. It was stressful enough having John disclose the contents of his nightmares to Dave, but now he knew exactly why it was happening. His eyes darted around the room, knowing that KK was probably still there somewhere, watching him. 

He almost wanted to grab John’s hand and run out of the place, but he knew he couldn’t. It would only bring a million more questions that Dave couldn’t answer. And he thought that maybe KK wouldn’t be driven to murder all in one night. If he’s been around ever since his death, and as angry as Dave assumed he was, then he’s probably had something a lot more slow and a lot worse than murder planned. 

Dave’s phone buzzed and he shot over to it, eyes scanning over the notification and fingers running along the keyboard.

_‘Are you serious? What’s wrong??’_

_I’ll explain everything when you get here, please, I need you to come now. Like, as fast as fucking possible. I never ask for shit like this please Jade just shut up and get your ass over here._

He knew Jade wouldn’t appreciate anything about his text, but he didn’t care. He needed John to be safe and he couldn’t do much if the thing doing harm can conjure up the only thing in the world that can hurt him. It was scary. Dave was thoroughly scared, not for himself really, but he had no idea what ideas hid behind KK’s smile. 

He was sure if his heart could beat, he’d probably be suffering a heart attack right about now. 

His phone buzzed once more just as a heavy handed knock sounded from the door startling him. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before walking across the room and opening up the door. He was greeted with a less than cheery teenage boy holding a box of pizza. The delivery boy looked him up and down with the kind of judgement only a nihilistic highschooler can own, and with a huff and a dragged out scratchy voice told Dave the price. He gave a quick nod and told him to wait a minute so he could get his wallet. After retrieving the money and exchanging it for the pizza from the disgruntled boy, who didn’t even bother counting it, he shut the door and turned to be faced with a grinning John coming out of the bedroom.

“Pizza time!” He rubbed his hands together and plopped down at the dining room table. 

Dave couldn’t help the small smile that creeped upon his lips at seeing John’s wet curls and flushed face. His freckles were just slightly darker and his nose was still pink from the warmth of the water. He could almost get lost in John’s smiling face if it didn’t so quickly drop once they made eye contact.

“Are you okay?” He tilted his head to the side and scrunched his brows together. Dave was suddenly very aware of how terrible he probably looked. Rosary in the guts didn’t really leave a sun kissed glow, no matter how much Dave wished it did. “You look like you died.”

Dave forced his best laugh and set the pizza box down on the table, flipping up the lid and taking a seat next to John. “Yea I’m fine, just got a bit dizzy but I’m okay.” 

He tried to make the words as genuine as possible but they fell off his tongue exactly as a lie should. The truth was that he definitely did not feel good. He felt the exact opposite. His mind kept pulling him to all sorts of unpleasant places and John’s metronome heartbeat and warm blooded flush definitely didn’t help to keep him away from said places. He almost let himself think, just for a second, what it might be like to have a little bit of John on his lips. How thick or thin his blood may drip, how much adrenaline he’d be able to taste and how dark or bright it would pour. He blinked the thought away though, and internally lashed himself with _what the fuck dude._

John raised his eyebrow but decided not to press, his stomach also bringing his mind away. “Maybe it’s ‘cuz you need to eat something.” John smiled as he picked up the biggest slice and shoveled it into his mouth, taking as enormous bites as he possibly could, his cheeks stuffed and round like a puffer fish.

“Actually I think if I ate something i’d probably puke it all up. I think I’m gonna pass for now, I’ll just have some leftovers tomorrow.” Dave wasn’t exactly lying. He really did think he may puke if he were to eat anything, his guts still ached a bit, like how he assumed heartburn felt like. It had all momentarily gone away after he threw the rosary away from him, but now it was slowly, little by little, coming back. He wondered if maybe KK was just burning holes into him as some kind of torture cool-down.

“Aight, more for me then. Take some tums or something, it’s easy on the body and actually helps if you can get over the fact that it tastes like chalk.” John shot Dave a warm smile before continuing to cram 3 slices of pizza down his throat at once. Dave really had no idea how the boy could eat that much.

While John was preoccupied with his food induced ecstasy, Dave checked his phone for the text earlier from Jade. 

_‘Be there in 30.’_

Dave cleared his throat and set his phone screen-side down on the table. Thirty minutes was doable. He was sure nothing terrible would happen in those thirty minutes. Apart from maybe John getting wicked heartburn or choking on a piece of pepperoni. As long as KK didn’t magic up another rosary a la mode, things would probably go okay. Maybe. He was still on edge. He felt as though he could feel the static in the air from another presence, and it weighed like a dumbell on his conscious. 

“I have a question.” John spoke in between mouthfuls of pizza, and Dave raised his eyebrows at the break in his worries.

“What’s your question?” 

“How can you pay for rent but you don’t have a job?”

Dave’s face did a whole 360 in confusion, surprise, defense, and back to confusion. “Where did that come from?”

John snorted and paused from his pizza, “I dunno, it just came to mind. You paid for the pizza, you were supposed to pay for groceries, and you pay rent, but i’ve never heard you mention a job or any type of thing that’d bring you an income, so i’m just curious.”

Dave smiled, caught well off guard by the question. But he guessed eventually it would have come up, he just thought it’d be over taxes instead of pizza being eaten unbelievably fast. “I just rob people. Everytime I go out, i’m heading out to mug some dude or stick up a store if i’m feelin excitable. Plenty of cash if I go a bit more north.” He wore a smug expression, knowing the truth wasn’t that far off in the long run. 

He never said he had great morals. 

John rolled his eyes and took another bite, laughing, “You know it’s okay to say it’s daddy’s money.”

Dave could have cracked a mirror with how loud he laughed. “You think i’m getting money from my parents to pay for rent? I’m not _that_ lazy, John!”

John laughed and shrugged, “Well, I dunno! Coulda’ fooled me! You never talk about a job so that’s what I just assumed! For real though, how do you get money?”

Dave ticked his head slightly to the side, “From the mafia.”

“Dave.”

“I sell drugs.”

“Seriously.”

“I’m a freelance prostitute.”

At that John cracked up and threw his hands up in defeat. “Fine! You know what, as long as you make rent on time, I don’t care. Sue me for being curious!”

Dave smirked and leaned back in his chair a bit, “I’ve got a friend who does construction stuff and he gets payed a fuck ton per gig and if I help out then I get a pretty good portion of it. I can usually scrap an entire month's rent in two days.” 

John’s face lit up, “That’s impressive! Why the hell am I not invited? I want that kind of cash.”

“Because you have a job and if you were to come then my cut would be way less.” 

“Well, then tell your friend, Mr. Moneybags-Construction, that if you’re ever out of town and he needs a hand, to hit me up.”

“I gotchu.” Dave smiled shifted himself on the chair better and turned so he was facing the pizza annihilator. This was probably a good time to bring up Jade’s imminent arrival. He swallowed and brought his hand up to the back of his neck, earning him a head tilt from John. 

“Speaking of friends, actually, um, a friend of mine is…” The sentence started to cement in his mouth. The realization hit him that he was finally mixing his worlds together and that seemed a lot more scarier in the moment than the ghost of his murder victim peering holes through him from across the room. Is this what he wanted? Not really, but did he have much of a choice? After what happened, the rosary, the dreams? He couldn’t put John in danger. KK was forcing his hand and it made him sick to his stomach. “Is sort of in a.. weird place right now and was wondering if she could maybe come over tonight?”

John raised his eyebrow waiting for a question before he realized that was the question. He laughed and almost choked on his pizza, “Are you asking me if you can have a girl over?”

Dave rolled his eyes but before he could tell John it wasn’t what he thought, John continued. “I’m not your mom, Dave, you can have whoever the fuck you want over.”

Dave scoffed, “Yea, I get that but y’know, I wasn’t just gonna not ask. It’s your apartment”

This made John laugh even more as he was taken a bit aback by Dave’s words, “It’s our apartment, Dave, not just mine! You live here too now remember?”

Dave lifted his hands in defense but also found himself laughing, “Okay, whatever. Either way you live here and I can’t just have someone come over and not tell you about it.”

John rolled his eyes and huffed a small laugh through his nose, taking another colossal bite out of his pizza stack. “So, she, huh?” He sent Dave a bubble cheeked smirk and Dave let disgust take over his face. 

“Don’t even think of it like that, neither of us are anywhere near interested in each other.”

“Mm-Hm.”

“I’m serious! She’s like my little brat sister. We tolerate each other at best.”

“Is that why you’re having her over when she’s in a ‘weird place’.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

John pursed his lips and sent a pair of ‘knowing’ eyes to the blonde, which earned him a hearty shoulder punch from Dave. 

“Ow! I didn’t even say anything!” John jokingly gripped his shoulder like he had been shot and couldn’t help but notice a lingering cold sensation. Like he had been hit by a piece of ice. His face turned to confusion.

“Your eyes said enough.” Dave sent him a smile but it quickly dropped seeing the curious expression on Johns features. “What?”

John tilted his head to the side a bit and reached one of his hands out to Dave’s resting on the table. Before Dave could pull it away, John had his fingers laced in examining fashion around the vampire’s palm. His eyes widened a bit as he graced along Dave’s fingers and knuckles. He then took Dave’s hand in both of his like a sandwich and brought his eyes up to meet Dave’s who was looking at John like he was insane, “Dude your hand is cold as fuck.” 

Dave recoiled his hand and brought it underneath the table so it wasn’t up for grabs anymore and shrugged, “I’ve got poor circulation.”

John scoffed, “I’ve known people with poor circulation Dave, their hands aren’t fuckin ice cubes. You sure you’re okay?”

John gave Dave another once-over, looking a bit closer now. His waterline’s were tinted red and his skin was pale, a subtle hint of blue laid underneath, his lips were a light pink- just slightly off from normal, and his under eye’s could have fooled him into thinking Dave hadn’t slept well for awhile. Though, Dave had just seemed perfectly fine, so he assumed the dizzy spell was probably more than Dave was leading on to, still a bit of sickness didn’t seem far out of the realm of possibilities. 

John reached his hand up towards Dave’s face and out of pure reflex Dave grabbed onto John’s wrist and pushed himself back against his seat. “What the hell are you doing?”

John’s face again came to confusion, and surprise, as his eyes went to the grip on his wrist. He had a small flashback to some stupid challenge he and a friend had done once in middle school where you put salt and ice on your arm, the same cold creeping feeling that had run down through his veins from then made its way down his arm now. He quickly brought his thoughts back to the present moment at Dave’s odd reaction, thinking that what he was doing was fairly obvious. 

“I was gonna feel your forehead, see if you had a fever or something. Jeez.” His wrist was still firmly being held by Dave, whose lips parted slightly as if to say _oh._

Dave kept his position for just a moment before releasing John’s hand and leaning forward in his seat. “Sorry, didn’t mean to freak out. Thought you were pullin’ a fast one. Feel away.” He honestly did not want John to feel his forehead because he knew damn well it’d be just as cold as the rest of him. He did have poor circulation, but that was more of a half-truth as he didn’t really have any circulation. But usually he was a bit warmer, less like rigor mortis cold and more like only a few hours dead cold- still soft.

He clenched his jaw as John brought his hand up once more, slower this time, and placed it on his forehead. John’s face became taught as he flipped his hand around, double checking that he was definitely feeling how frozen it was. He felt like he was touching Jack Frost. 

And then, for some reason he couldn’t exactly place, his hand trailed a bit down and rested by Dave’s temple. It was like touching a windshield of a car that had sat out in a snowstorm. He brought his hand down further to Dave’s cheekbone, just studying Dave’s skin as he touched it. 

Dave furrowed his brows and watched John’s expression fill with interest as he touched Dave’s face. Something in him wanted to pull back and swat John’s hand away, but he stayed as is and watched John’s thoughts so clearly flash across his face. 

John’s fingers felt warm against his skin. Like sitting next to a fireplace after coming in from a blizzard. Every place that John moved over had this tingle of warmth linger over it. It was odd, since he never really felt temperature. It was calming. He could almost close his eyes and fall asleep to the thrumming of John’s heart in the veins of his wrist. He was reminded of the nights when his mother would boil water and stick the pans under the blankets of his and his brothers bed before they slept so they could be warm during the winter nights. How snuggling into the blankets made him feel so safe that he would almost always drift asleep right away. 

John’s hand against his cheek felt so gentle and sweet he almost felt the urge to press his face against the others palm, wanting the warmth to be more than just small spots from the tips of his fingers. He could hear the blood rushing around underneath John’s skin and he brought his eyes to John’s arm, which was so close. John was so close. He could hear his quiet breathing like it was right up against his ear, could see the subtle ticks of movement on his lips, and could smell the shampoo John had used in the shower. He wanted to lean forward and wrap his arms around the brunette, hold him close and let the warm surround him just like the blankets from his childhood. But he knew that’d be a bit weird, not that this was the most normal forehead feel though. He brought his gaze back up to the enthralled boy before him trying so hard to figure out why Dave was so cold. 

John traced his finger to Dave’s jaw tilted his head to the side. He pressed his palm against the angle of it and held it there a moment, taking note of the slight change in Dave’s color where his hand was. He thought that he should bring both his hands to Dave’s cheeks, but the thought immediately rang oddly in his head and raised his eyes to meet Dave’s, snapping back to reality when they locked stares instantly. John pulled back his hand, Dave almost wanted to groan at the loss of heat. John immediately felt his face grow hot. That was definitely not how a friend goes about feeling another friend's forehead. The intimacy of it struck him viciously, and he wondered why Dave didn’t pull away when John’s hand drifted away from his hairline. Even when it was at his cheek, he stayed put. Not only that, but he couldn’t help but note that Dave had been watching him. 

John cleared his throat and averted his eyes to the ground, “Yea, you’re definitely sick, you should go to the doctor.” His words were fast and mumbled, his embarrassment clearly poking through. 

Dave parted his lips again, this time as if he were to start a sentence, but no words left his mouth. He stayed how he was, leaned forward, eyes on John, and a residual tingling sensation on his skin. 

He didn’t exactly know what to say. His head veered a bit to the right and his eyes became full of thought. John’s heart rate had widely increased, and Dave wasn’t any fool to not know how gay it all seemed. He had lived through the eighties, afterall. But it didn’t feel… out of place. It was as if John’s hand was supposed to go there. Their eyes were supposed to hold each others stares. John’s face was supposed to turn bright fucking red. 

Dave’s eyes stayed locked on John, his mind moving at a much, much more sluggish pace than he was used to. John squirmed under the other’s gaze, not liking the silence or the tension in the air. “I mean, you’re not burning up that’s for sure, but I don’t think your shit’s normal either.” John forced a laugh which came out a bit more airy than he hoped, and he brought his eyes back up to see Dave, at a semi loss for words. 

Something inside the blonde felt warm still, but in a different way from John’s touch. It was like the feeling when you first drop from a height, the floor falling beneath you, and for just a moment your body thinks itself weightless. It wouldn’t leave, he felt like flying. 

John’s heart pounded in his chest in the silence, scared he had broken Dave, or at least, weirded him out. Which was definitely not a great place to venture to with your roommate, and at that, best friend. He glanced around the room a bit before settling his eyes on Dave’s phone, thinking it best to switch the topic. “When’s your friend gonna be here?”

Dave finally registered that way too much had passed between John’s first sentence to now without an answer from him and he kicked himself mentally. He cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair, picking up his phone and fiddling with it. “Uh, she said thirty minutes around fifteen minutes ago.”

John nodded, “Yea, okay, cool.” Another beat of silence. John shifted. “What are you guys gonna do?” 

Dave hated the weirdness that had suddenly been spun between them. How heavy the air felt, he could almost swear he actually felt the cold inside him that John had. He sniffed and reached a hand up to scratch his shoulder. “Probably just make some hot chocolate and watch cartoons and talk. Maybe play a game.” Dave smiled and tried to force away the awkwardness, “You’re welcome to join us but I can’t guarantee that either me or you will win against her, she’s pretty much a jack of all trades. She could beat your high score in trivia without question.”

John scoffed, “I doubt it! I’ve been reading trivia since I was born, no way she can top that!” He felt a lot of the tension in the air fall off his shoulders. Back to laughter.

“She’s studied trivia to such an extent you’d think she’d been alive for every single question topic. It’s truly unbelievable, John. Your brain is like a pea compared to hers.”

“Oh yea,” John challenged, his face full of offense, “What does that make yours?”

Dave laughed and put his hands up in defense, “I never said I was good at trivia! My brain is smaller than a fuckin ants’, I’m just saying that you have competition!”

“Yea, well, we’ll see about that.” John smiled and already started to compile his best miscellaneous facts from deep within his dork side. He suddenly remembered his almost completed pizza stack, much colder than it was when he abandoned it, and he dug his hands back into his plate.

The next couple of minutes were spent in silence, John devouring his food down to the china, and Dave counting each and every second, trying not to feel eyes on him from every shadow in the room. 

It was eerie and mostly, extremely uncomfortable. He wanted to disappear into the aether and rip off his own face. His past was already regrettable enough, but now that it was quite literally haunting his present, it felt like he was back in the moment. Existing in two times all at once, one with a happy idiot chock full of pizza hut, and the other dead and bleeding on the kitchen floor. 

A resigned shudder shook the vampire and he craned his neck slightly. The past was supposed to stay in the past. Dead things were supposed to stay buried. Not watching him in his living room. But he supposed that he sort of broke that rule too.

He wondered what KK thought of John, and especially if he harbored any anger toward the brunette. Dave would gladly expose himself in a heartbeat if it meant having to protect John from the wrath of a 70 year old ghost, but he hoped it wouldn’t have to come to that. 

Then there was the issue of the dreams. He was certain it was KK giving them to John. How else could they be so accurate without John knowing anything? But why would he mess with John at all, why not just string Dave up in a chapel and call it a day? His breath felt stuck and heavy in his lungs. KK was _warning_ John. 

Warning him not to fall into the same trap he did. 

And just as Dave could feel the black pit in his stomach drop, a knock on the door cued both the boys’ heads up and they shared a glance before Dave stood to answer. 

He walked to the door and swung it open, being greeted by a less than happy Jade. He gave her a smile, a cue to have her pretend like she actually liked him, and gave a friendly, “Hey!”

She was dressed in simple casual wear and had her hair pulled back in an extraordinarily poofy ponytail. She could pass as any average college student with flying colors. Her eyes bore through Dave like ice drills beyond her round rimmed glasses before she stepped inside, switching her expression to something more happy. 

“Hey!” she cheered, her voice an octave higher than usual. She stepped through the doorframe and scanned the room quickly before her eyes landed on John, who was now standing by the kitchen counter. “And you must be the roommate! John, right?”

John flashed her a toothy grin, “That’s me! And you’re…?” He very suddenly realized that Dave didn’t actually tell him her name, nor did he ask, which was both stupid and rude of him. He mentally kicked himself for forgetting basic manners.

She gave a small laugh and walked a few steps to close the gap between them, outstretching her hand like a girl scout and smiling like one too, “Jade. It’s nice to finally meet you!”

John shook her hand but raised his eyebrow a bit, “Finally?”

Jade laughed and turned her head back to give Dave a quick glance, “Dave talks about you all the time so I feel like our meeting is a bit overdue.”

The boys both felt themselves get a bit red and shared a look before Dave threw his hands into the air, “Why would you tell him that! Now he’s gonna think he’s important or something!”

John held up his pointer finger and laughed, “I already knew I was important, she just validated it.”

Jade giggled between them and shoved her hands into her jacket pocket, taking a look around the apartment a bit more. She definitely had some tips on their interior design, but now wasn’t exactly the time to talk about decor. And even barring the emergency, she’d only exchanged a few words with John and hardly knew him enough to where she could just trash his home. 

John cleared his throat and gestured to the half empty pizza box on the kitchen table, “If you’re hungry we have some pizza! Not much to drink though except for water unfortunately.”

Jade raised her eyebrows and drew her gaze to the table as Dave scoffed, “You don’t want any of that pizza, trust me, it’s got John drool all over it.”

John’s face went on defense as he very loudly objected, “ _It does not!_ I don’t drool!”

“He literally ate that entire half all by himself, inhaled it in one whole bite, you shoulda’ seen it, it was amazing, I thought he was gonna choke-”

“Shut up!”

“-But his jaw unhinged like a snake and he went so fast, I had to stop him from eating the plate too.”

“Dave!”

Dave ignored him and looked at Jade with a serious face, though a small smile escaped him, “It was honestly the most nerve wracking thing i’ve ever seen. I deleted pizza hut’s number in my phone, it was so traumatizing.”

John huffed and rubbed at his temples, “You are literally the most frustrating person in the world, you know.” 

Jade let another giggle fall through her lips and she gave John a warm smile, “I’m okay on the pizza, I already ate. Thank you, though. Also, don’t worry, I know how he is”

“Ay, what’s that supposed to mean?” Dave’s face twisted in offense.

“It means you’re a dickhead and we all know it.” Jade joked and slipped off her jacket, throwing it over a chair.

Dave gasped and John cackled, “Thank you! Someone understands!”

“Fuck you both. People would kill to be as close to me as you all are.” 

“I think that says more about them than you.” Jade retorted, taking a seat on the futon in the living. Dave rolled his eyes and sent John a quick death stare, which John inturn smiled brightly and mouthed I like her!

Great, Dave thought, They’re friends. Right when I thought things couldn’t get worse.

Dave, however, felt eyes on him again as John joined Jade in the living room, the two of them chatting about recent events. His eyes flicked to every shadow and every corner that KK could possibly be in, but every place he looked was a whole lot of nothing. A sense of urgency coursed through him and he hastily stepped into the living room, thinking of the most believable and immediate way he could to get John out of the apartment. 

“Shit, John, I totally forgot to tell you,” John looked up at Dave as he spoke, “The building owner dude called and he needed you to come down to the office and sign some shit once you got home.”

John blinked and let his mouth hang open a bit, “Are you serious?”

Dave shrugged and wore a guilty expression.

“For fucks sake.” John groaned and stood, staring Dave down with eyes of fire, “How is that something you forget?! I got home like two hours ago! You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me! Did he say what he wanted me to sign?” 

Dave shook his head and muttered a soft apology and John stomped past him, slipping on his shoes and grabbing his jacket. The office was in the building adjacent to the one they lived in, which meant he had to go out in the cold to get there. “I’ll be back soon, I guess! Might as well go grocery shopping since you forgot about that too!”

“That’d be a good idea.” Dave poked as John rolled his eyes and slammed the door behind him. 

He muttered a few more curses under his breath as he walked down the hall leading to the stairwell from their apartment. Dave would definitely owe him for this. It was colder than anything outside, snow was supposed to fall later that night, and he had to trudge up to see their good for nothing landlord who got everything done last minute. Dave was going to go grocery shopping for the next month if he had any say in it. 

John made it to the door of the stairwell and wrapped his hand around the knob, tugging the heavy door open and

Everything went black.

**

Dave exchanged a glance with Jade, whose expression dropped like a ton of bricks as soon as John left. 

“You look like shit, y’know.” She jabbed, the cheeriness being replaced with annoyance.

“Yea, well, it’s been a rough night.”

“So you’ve led on. What happened?” 

He put up his pointer finger to signal for her to wait before he turned and walked to the junk drawer in the small desk situated in the corner of the living room. He opened it up and plucked the rosary from among the other knick knacks, ignoring the searing of his fingers at every point it made contact. 

He let it dangle in his hands as he turned back and walked in front of Jade, taking a seat on the coffee table. She scrunched her eyebrows as she examined the object. 

“A rosary?”

“Yep.”

“Why are you holding it?”

Dave scoffed. “Compared to what I went through earlier with it, this is nothing.” The skin on his palm was burned in a coil of beads as he set it beside him.

“What does that mean?”

Dave situated his hands at either side of him and gripped the edge of the table, “It means that an old friend came and visited and conjured it up in my chest. I only got it out once he dragged it up to my throat. Felt like I was gonna die.”

Jade’s eyes widened, “What?! Are you serious? Is he a witch?”

Dave sighed, “No, he’s a ghost. And he’s also been the one giving John night terrors, which by the way are all of me as a vampire killing him. So, if the cat ever comes out of the bag, it’ll be so much worse of a time for him than it would be without those dreams.” Dave grit his teeth at the thought.

Jade’s mouth hung open, “Hold on. This is too much information at once, what do you mean he’s a ghost? How do you know he’s what’s giving John nightmares?”

Dave rubbed his eyes in frustration before dropping his hands into his lap. “I know he’s a ghost because I’m the one who killed him. And, I know he’s whats giving John nightmares because the feelings and the imagery of the dream are way to accurate to which they could only really be dreamt, or put into John’s head, by someone who experienced it firsthand.”

He almost expected KK to appear right when he said that, bracing himself for another religious artifact to be shoved up his ass, but there was nothing. Jade sunk her shoulders and leaned back in her chair. 

“Of course. It’s the ghost from someone you killed. I don’t know what else I was expecting.” Jade sighed. “I should just let him haunt your ass. You deserve it.”

“Yea, I do,” Dave’s face drooped with guilt, “But John doesn’t. He’s being hurt because of this too. And fuck knows what KK wants to do. I mean, it’s been over seventy years since it happened, Jade, he could have anything planned.”

Jade stayed quiet as she thought for a moment. John didn’t deserve to be haunted, especially in where his subconscious couldn’t even escape. And if this ghost were to really harm Dave, it could mean an even worse fate for John. It was an easy decision, even though everything about this unnerved her to the bone.

“Okay I’ll help, but there’s not a lot I can do. I can start by putting in place some warding spells so at least you won’t have a third roommate, but besides that there’s only two other ways I could get rid of him. The first one would be to bind and banish him to another time, and the other one is basically force him to move on by burning whatever is holding him here, which is pretty damn complicated since it could be literally anything. Could be a quarter, or a cigarette butt, or a piece of clothing. Anything. So, i’d start with the binding one. However, that ones almost as tricky as it takes time to complete the spell and the spirit has to stay put while you do it.”

Dave exhaled slowly and sulked, “So, the odds of getting rid of him are not great.”

Jade shook her head and frowned. There weren’t many ways to get rid of ghosts, it more of less crossed over the line of messing with the natural order of life, so manuals on how to deal with them aren’t very researched on. 

“I can try to read up some more on it and see if I can find anything else, but for now thats all-”

Dave’s phone rang in his pocket with John’s familiar ringtone. Dave fished around in his pocket for it and pulled it out, holding up his pointer finger once more to tell Jade to wait. He pressed the green accept button and held it up to his ear.

“Yo, John. You sign the papers?”

Silence came from the other end.

“Hello?” Dave tried again. 

Still nothing.

Dave’s eyebrows pulled together and he looked at Jade, whose head was tilted a bit in curiosity. 

“John? You there?”

And then, a small bit of shuffling cracked against the microphone on the other end and John’s voice came through, somber and breathy.

_“I’m here.”_

It immediately didn’t feel right and Dave frowned. “Did you sign the papers?”

Another moment of silence. 

_“No.”_

Dave pulled the phone away from his ear and pressed on speaker, locking eyes with Jade. A heavy breath caught in his throat. John didn’t speak like this. 

“...Why not?”

There was more silence and Jade flicked her eyes between Dave’s and the phone, her face as taut as the vampire’s.

“ _Because that was all an excuse._ ”

An overwhelming cold shot down his spine and he straightened faster than a soldier. Jade did the same, and both of them knew something was very, very wrong. 

This was not John. 

A couple seconds passed before Dave muttered out, “What do you mean? An excuse for what?”

A small laugh came from the phone, and the voice that followed was much more full of life than the other replies, “ _To get John out of the house, right? Or am I wrong?_ ”

Jade and Dave shot up like bullets and Jade ran to grab her coat as Dave went to the window to see if he could spot KK. Nothing. No sign on John on any corner, in any alley, or outside of the apartment office building. 

“Where are you?” Dave yelled into the phone, a fear bubbled up into his throat and he rushed to join Jade in putting on shoes. 

“ _Just going for a walk. Needed some fresh air._ ”

The response came so sour through John’s voice and it made him cringe. Dave remembered saying those exact words to KK.

The two of them spilled out of the door into the hallway and hurried toward the stairwell. As they were skipping down the steps Dave held his phone up to his ear again, “KK, please, your problem is with me and you and me can deal with it, don’t bring John into this, he’s done nothing!”

There was no response from the other end. Just the wind of outside. 

Jade and Dave busted through the front doors and turned to each other, Jade pointed to the left and Dave gave her a nod. She turned on her heels and ran, scouring through every possible pocket John could be. Dave went to the right and began his search.

“Come on, KK, you don’t need to play games, we can figure this out however you want. Just hop out of his body and we’re fair game.”

Dave scanned every alley he passed, investigated every heartbeat, listened for any voice sounding like John’s, or even KK’s. 

“ _You shouldn’t have left him alone.”_

Dave growled and froze, peering in every direction, trying to narrow in on every single sound.

“That’s a real fucked up way of lookin’ at it.”

KK laughed and the sting behind it felt so foreign to his friend’s voice. He had never heard it even with KK when he was alive. Death was a mean motherfucker. 

“ _He’s better off, y’know. Being without you._ ”

“That’s not for you to decide.”

“ _You’re right! It’s for neither of us to decide, and yet somehow, you’re making the choice for him every day that you involve yourself with his life and not tell him the truth._ ”

The words burned deep within Dave, as if he had never spit out the rosary.

“Just get out of him KK. I’ll surrender myself however you want me to, Okay? I’ll do it, just drive a different body and say the words.”

He could almost hear the smile that tugged on John’s lips, KK pulling the reigns of every movement. “ _I’ll have him back by curfew._ ”

“Come on, KK. Don’t mess around. You’re bringing someone into this who has no part. You want me, you got me. Just, come on. Please.” Dave would have been on his knees if KK had been in front of him. He would beg like a dead man before God if he could.

“... I’m sorry, KK. I never meant to hurt you.” Remorse oozed from Dave’s tongue and his voice cracked. He didn’t know what else to say. He was scared and everything he had felt from that night crashed over him like a tidal wave, drowning him in the undertow. 

“ _You didn’t hurt me, Dave._ ” His voice was bitter and quick and full of vitriol. “ _You. KILLED. Me._ ” 

The phone started to crack and sputter with sound before going dead. Dave started to panic and re-dialed John’s number over and over and over again with no pick up. He staggered forward before stopping and leaning against the side of the building next to him, his breath turning into a thick honey in his lungs and his mind racing like a jockey on steroids. 

He was scared. He was honest to god scared. KK could do _anything_ in John’s body. He could kill somebody. He could walk into a store and knife the cashier and it would all be on John. Or worse, Dave’s hair stood up on the back of his neck, He could kill John. Just hop over a bridge and let John sink in the freezing water. 

He couldn’t think about anything else except for all the terrible things KK could do. He was controlling John, and it was all his fault. He should have known better than to let John go out alone. He had no protection then. Dave felt stupid. He felt stupid and guilty and angry and so, so, so scared. 

He had to find John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, if the ending seems weird, blame it on drunk Liv. 
> 
> Anyways, what?? John was POSSESED! Wild. Who thought of that?
> 
> Plz comment y'all, i need it in my soul. Tell me what i can do better, or what you liked, or where u think the story's going, etc. Anything you wanna say. A bitch needs to know.
> 
> Love y'all. Maybe i'll update on time next week. But who knows w me. I'm what the kids call- the fucking worst.


End file.
